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ADVENTURES 
SOCIAL AND 

LITER A RY 




DOUGLAS AIXSLIE WHEN ATTACHE IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE. 



Frgntispi«ce. 



ADVENTURES SOCIAL 
AND LITERARY 

By DOUGLAS AINSLIE 



ILLUSTRATED 



E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 
68 1 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 






PUBLISHEH 



,'AM I^« 



{All rights reset ved) 

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 



Paullo leviora canamus 
{Let us talk for a little of lighter things) 



FOREWORD 

The following pages of Adventures should be looked 
upon and read as though one had chanced to meet 
the Author at a country-house party^, and after a British 
breakfast, damask tablecloth, silver, silver everywhere, 
and roses and rolls and simmering dishes, and honey 
taken episodically by each guest as he and she strolls 
into the dining-room during the course of the m'orning, 
two or three or four of the number of either sex happen 
to stroll out upon the soft emerald lawn and stand under 
the big cedar that shades them from the sun, already 
high risen in the sky. The Author tells some of his 
experiences for twejity minutes or so, after which the 
ifnpromptu party separates, to meet perhaps, equally 
by accident, after luncheon, in one of the broad bay- 
windows looking over th,e lake and distant woodlands : 
one solitary church spire gives a note of idealism to 
the landscape. More stories then, and perhaps a boating] 
excursion on the lake, where some may get a little 
wet, but they will not catch a severe cold. 

The Author's chief regret is that he is obliged to. 
monopolize the conversation on this occasion (for listen- 
ing well to others is half of good conversation). 

A late famous ambassador, w'hose son was the author's 
good friend, was once staying with Dr. Jowett at 
Balliol. He grew cheerful and amusing with the cham- 
pagne, and wthen the port came and the ladies retired, 

7 



8 FOREWORD 

though several undergraduates remained, he became 
ultra facetious. Jowett listened to the beginning 
of a tale that opened like a scarlet geranium arid 
gave signs of concluding in the orchid-house — ^then 
suddenly he piped out in his falsetto treble : "Sir 
Jasper, will you finish your story in the drawing-room'? " 
I hope mine may begin and end there or' as above in 
the shade of the cedar after breakfast, without offence, 
although I shall talk freely of the living as; well as 
of the dead. Thought is so much more real than the 
physical body that it triumphs over the accident of 
death . 

The Athen^um, 
Pall Mall, 
1922. 



CONTENTS 



FOREWORD 7 

CHAPTER I 

EARLIEST DAYS I5 

Birth in Paris — A Marquis de Marque — The Due's bet — 
Vanilla Ice — My Grandfather, James Grant Duff — My 
Godfather's Gift — Dindin — Hide-and-Seek with a Bear — 
Imperial Disguise — The Judge's Joke — The old Earl of Fife 
— In and out of Irons — Old Fyvie — A Delgaty Ghost — 
Delgaty repaired 1525. 

CHAPTER II 

SCHOOL, SALMON, POETRY 38 

Song of the Stewart's — Lochiel — Prince Charlie — Dotheboys- 
and-Parents House — My first Fight — Stag Beetles — My big 
Salmon — Golden Minutes at Whipps Cross — Playing the 
Game — Woodcote House — Tom Brown's Schooldays. 

CHAPTER III 

ETON 55 

Arrival — From Lock's to Dumford's — P. J. de Paravicini — 
Eton " Swagger " — " Passing " in Swimming at Cuckoo Weir 
— Football " Colours " Won — Don Juan Confiscated — Romps. 

CHAPTER IV 

ETON AND OXFORD 64 

Escalading the Tower — A Tragedy of Good Health — Mousing 
— A Martinet — Balliol — The Master Examined — Enter Arthur 
Bourchier — Jowett and the Old Vic. 

CHAPTER V 

SWINBURNE, WILDE, AND PATER ...... 83 

Oxford Days — Bristol Restaurant — First in London — 
Luncheon Festivities — Bullingdon Dinners — The Ishmaelites 



10 CONTENTS 



Society — J. P. Nichol and Swinburne — Maturity at Seventeen 
— With Swinburne at Louise Molesworth's — Either or Ether 
— Oxford Days — " Full of the Warm South " — Oscar Wilde 
Trounced by H. J. Maynard — Anecdotes of Wilde — Injustice 
of Whistler — Wilde as Conversationalist — Walter Pater — 
First Meeting — Wilde on Walt Whitman — Lionel Johnson 
as Roman Catholic — The Escalade — Oxford Alpine Club — 
Wilde's Sentence Unjust — After Imprisonment — His Feat 
in Paris — A Lost Masterpiece. 



CHAPTER VI 

MERRY-GO-ROUND IO4 

Anecdote of Francisque Sarcey — " Mr. Shelly " — William 
Morris and the Assafoetida — Cudgels and Communism — 
Arthur Bourchier and Jowett — Hon. Robert Scot Montagu — 
A Jovial Alcestis — O.U.D.S. — My Midsummer Night's Dream 
— Billiard Match with Ralph Nevill — Marquis of Clanrikarde 
V. Sir Robert Peel. 



CHAPTER VII 

FRANCE AND FISHING II7 

Sir Robert Peel and the Marquis of Clanrikarde — A Famous 
Jewel — Skating and Sliding — Frog-Fishing — Paris — " Throw 
in the Rod " — A Monster — Julian's Best Days. 



CHAPTER VIII 

DANCING AND DUCKING I35 

The Old Lord Fife — Scoones and Diplomacy — Sam Lewis 
Gambling — Reel Dancing in Scotland — Society in excelsis — 
Ball Dancing — Embassy Ball at Rome — Orloff — The 
Ducking of the Princess — The Tears of Poland — Pageant 
zw excelsis. 



CHAPTER IX 

DIPLOMACY 156 

Athens — Sir Edmund Monson — Lady Monson — Mrs. Ronalds 
— " Duchesses as Thick as Peas " — Maid of Athens Plain — 
Declaration of War Mislaid — Lord Charles Beresford — 
Paderewski's Prophesy of the Great War — Prussians Low 
Born — Sir Clare Ford — Sir Donald Wallace — Olympia — 
Crown Prince of Greece. 



CONTENTS 11 

CHAPTER X 

PAGE 

VENICE AND LONDON I76 

Venice — Catulle Mendes — Duke of Bronte — Countess Hoyos 
and a Byronic Anecdote — Marquis of Huntly — Prince Bis- 
marck — At Homburg — The Empress Frederick — Gemran 
Society — Sir William Harcourt — The Duke of Devonshire — 
— Kaid Maclean — Herbert Spencer. 



CHAPTER XI 

ON LEAVE IN ENGLAND . . , I9I 

Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff — Belling the Cat at Downing 
Street — Grant Duff and Disraeli — Gladstone — Joseph 
Chamberlain — INIr. John Morley and India — What is a 
Gentleman — Robert Browning and Aubrey de Vere — Tenny- 
son — Lord Acton — The Tempo has changed — The Club — 
Harry Cust and the Souls — Calve and Mascagni — Harry 
Labouchere. 



CHAPTER XIT 

THE HAGUE AND DIPLOMACY 207 

The Hague — Sir Horace Rumbold — Sir Francis Bertie — 
Colleagues at the Hague — Baron Tomtit — Lionel Bonham — 
My Cousin Sir Evelyn Grant Duff, British Minister at Berne — 
Prince Poniatowski and King Milan — Storm in a Delft Tea- 
cup — Prince or Waiter ? — Marquis of DufEerin — Pari^ 
Embassy — Too Great to Care — Garibaldi's Slipper — Cult 
of the Turf. 



CHAPTER XIII 

AMBASSADOKS AND SARAH 224 

Lords Dufferin and Lytton — Charlie Duff — ^The Key of the 
" House " — Prince Demidoff — Conder as Pugilist — The Lord 
Chief Justice — Sarah Bernhardt — Edmond Rostand — Jean 
Richepin — Sarah as debutante — Stage Craft — Anatole France. 



CHAPTER XIV 

HENRY JAMES AND OTHERS • • 24O 

Cigarettes— Lady Grant Duff and the Tiny Ghost— Books are 
Talks — Gladstone Garrulous — Best Stories Lost — Henry 
James — His " First Night " — " Author ! Author " ! — 
Plucked Plumes — A Determined Talker. 



12 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XV 

PACE 

CROCE, BAUDELAIRE AND OTHERS 253 

Salons — ^Waiting her Chance — Benedetto Croce — William 
Poel — Bernard Shaw — Aubrey Beardsley — Baudelaire — 
Maurice Barrfes — Victor Hugo — Marcel Proust — Casanova — 
Ernest Renan. 

CHAPTER XVI 

COACHING AND OTHER CURIOSITIES 267. 

Walter Pater and Renan — Sanctuary ! — J. A. Cramb — 
A Magician — An Indian Mystery — I Drive the Coach — 
Susanne Reichenberg. 

CHAPTER XVII 

LITERARY AND OTHER LIONS — ITALY .... 278 

Hippolyte Taine — A Russian Diplomatist — Lessar Among 
the Lions — A Brave Lady — Not " My Lion " — Revels at 
Florence — The Rose Garden — Enchanted Ground. 

ITALY THE ENCHANTRESS ....... 29I 

THE DUFFS AND THE GORDONS — GENEALOGICAL TABLE 

At end 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

DOUGLAS AINSLIE WHEN ATTACH^: IN THE DIPLOMATIC 

SERVICE ....... Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

FANNY ELIZABETH AINSLIE. (The Euthor's mother) . l6 

LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO 

RUSSIA 22 

MARY A. MORGAN. (The authoi's maternal grand- 
mother) . 26 

WAITING FOR A WOODCOCK. (Julian Ainslie, the 

author's younger brother) 132 

DELGATY CASTLE l8o 

DOUGLAS AINSLIE, I922 I92 

MISS RUTH ANDERSON AS JULIET 284 



Adventures Social and Literary 



CHAPTER I 
EARLIEST DAYS 

Birth in Paris — A Marquis de Marque — The Due's bet — Vanilla Ice — 
My Grandfather, James Grant Duff — My Godfather's Gift— Dindin 
— Hide-and-Seek with a Bear — Imperial Disguise — The Judge's Joke 
—The old Earl of Fife— In and out of Irons— Old Fyvie— A Delgaty 
Ghost — Delgaty repaired 1525. 

Volumes have been written about " the adventures of 
the soul among masterpieces." The following pages 
will also deal with masterpieces, though the majority 
of these will be inspired rather by life than ,by art. 

I have always been pleased to think that I was born 
geographically a Parisian, though rriy father is a 
Scotsman and my mother's family, the Morgans, are 
of iWelsh descent, and can consequently lay no im- 
mediate claim' to French blood. But I believe that 
those who have had the privilege of drawing their first 
breath in the city by the Seine are to some extent, more 
or less according to temperament, touched by her wand 
to love of wit and beauty. 

I was bom on the i6th of December 1866 at 
127 Rue La Perouse. My father had come to Paris 
from St. Petersburg to be secretary of Embassy to 
Lord Cowley, who was then British Ambassador. At St. 
Petersburg, where he had filled' a similar post, he 
had wooed and won my mother. 

15 



16 EARLIEST DAYS 

Paris ! The word is and has always been a taHsman 
for me, though I have but the faintest recollections of 
that earliest Paris, when the Imperial Eagle still floated 
above the Palace of the Tuileries and the Second Empire 
was dancing down the dangerous flowery way, which 
led to the Franco -German iWar. A noisy world of 
pleasure seekers : 

Quel bruit ferait le monde 
Le jour ou Paris se tairait ! 

as they used to sing. 

The noise that Paris then made mUst certainly have 
been considerable, and I gather from an unimpeachable 
source that to this noise my infant lungs made an early 
and important contribution. I am said, indeed, to have 
developed, through steady and assiduous practice, 
astonishing lung-power, little appreciated by an elderly 
Marquis who dwelt immediately above the nursery. 
My dusky Nounou and my mother tried in vain ,to 
stem the torrent of infantine eloquence — and the Marquis 
suddenly departed. I have often tried to ascertain 
precisely who was this first person to take an interest 
in my voice, but have always failed. I was onc6 
told, however, that prior to my birth, the French servant 
Auguste had been asked who the Marquis was — his 
fuU jiame — was he really a Marquis? Auguste, who 
must have been a wag in his small way, smiled discreetly 
and replied : ■" Monsieur, c'est certainement un Marquis, 
mais ce rCest pas un Marquis de .Marque ." Poor imark- 
less Marquis ! He had evidently failed to come up to 
Auguste's standard of what a Marquis should be. 
Problem' : What was a Marquis of mark to a Parisian 
valet lat the end of the Second Empire? I suspect 
he must have been solrie mushroom' creation of 




FANNY ELIZABETH AINSLIE. 
The author's mother, 



To face p. 16, 



THE DUC'S BET 17 

Napoleon III, like our own batches of undistinguished 
peers (rightly despised by those who have not been 
insulted in a like manner), and I remember very well 
hearing it said in Paris in the 'nineties that the Dues 
and Princes of the First Empire drew a very iClear 
social line between themselves, and the results of the 
Louis Napoleon's and the Due de Morny's coup d'etat. 
Certainly, the late Due de Morny, his descendant, 
had a good deal of that sort of fagade which so 
easily rubs off and reveals the common clay beneath. 
He was celebrated for his financial schemes, which 
invariably ended ceteris paribus — like the Second 
Empire. 

But what an amusing time they must have had^ those 
D'Orsays, those Dues de Morny and Dues de Gramont 
Caderousse ! — though this latter, by the way, depended 
not upon Napoleon, but upon ancient kings of France 
for his titular distinctions. They must have been like 
big schoolboys, always out on the spree. This little 
joke is typical of the period, though the perpetrator was 
the last personage named. 

One April day he made a big bet that ihe would 
prevent the Emperor and Empress, who were to go 
in State to the Races at Longchamps for the Grand Prix 
that afternoon, from driving down the ChamJps Elysees 
on their return to Paris. He pledged himself to have 
no intercourse in the meantime with any of the sur- 
roundings of the Emf)eror high or low. Those who 
knew pf the bet exhausted themselves in conjectures 
when they saw Gramont -Caderousse quietly lunching 
on the great day at the Jockey Club on the Boulevard 
des Italiens with his inseparable friend, De la Hante. 
He remained there until late in the afternoon playing 
ecarte and smoking, and it was not until nearly feix 

2 



18 EARLIEST DAYS 

o'clock that he sent for his carriage, telling the coach- 
man to put him and his friend down at a short distance 
from the Arc de Triomphe. The Due stepped from' 
his carriage followed by his friend, and walked slowly 
to the edge of the curb at the Place de I'Etoile, in the 
centre of which stands the Arc de Triomphe at the 
top of the broad Avenue des Champs Elysees. The 
thunder of the first horses returning from the races 
was heard in the distance, as the Due, wearing the 
rosette of the Legion of Honour, took from his pocket 
a simple yard measure, from which he drew the tape 
as he handed the coil to his friend. The ser gents de 
ville and niounted police on duty immediately approached 
with enquiries as to what it was proposed to do with 
the measure, whereupon the Due waved them' away 
with a magnificent gesture. They hesitated for a 
moment, and then, over-awed by the high grade of the 
rosette and the extreme seriousness of its wearer, whom' 
they held to be acting under mysterious Imperial orders 
in connection with the roadway, proceeded to divert 
the whole of the racing-trafiic, including the carriages 
containing ithe Emperor and Empress and suite, down 
the side avenues. Meanwhile Gramont-Caderousse had 
crossed the broad avenue and stood facing his friend 
with the yard measure in one hand spanning the distance 
between them, and in the other a note-book in which 
he was gravely studying entirely fantastic lines of 
figures. The cheque which he received that evening 
was also fantastic — but for a definite sum — one of 
those dreams that come true across the banker's 
counter. i 

And was it Monsieur Mir^s or the quaint Baron de 
Saint-Cricq who went to the celebrated Tortoni's when 
it was most crowded with rank and fashion one summer 



GRANT DUFF BECOMES AINSLIE 19 

afternoon, and asking for a vanilla and a strawberry 
ice, when he had obtained theei, quietly took off his 
boots and ladled the vanilla into one boot, the straw- 
berry into the other, gravely repeating the while like a 
lesson well learned : " Vanilla ice right boot ! Straw- 
berry ice left boot ! " 

But I must return to my cradle and add that my 
mother was busily running her memory's eye over such 
names as most appealed to her and seemed most suit- 
able to her first-born, such as Napoleon (we two have 
always immensely admired him), Augustus, Emanuel, 
etc., )when a telegram' came from the " advocate " in 
Aberdeen : *' Your son must be christened Douglas 
Ainslie and nothing more by the termls of Mr. Douglas 
Ainslie's will." This Mr. Douglas Ainslie was my 
father's maternal uncle, and had just left him the whole 
of his property, Delgaty Castle in Aberdeenshire and 
Blervie in Moray, on condition of his adopting' the sur- 
name of Ainslie in place of Grant Duff, and calling 
his eldest son Douglas. Thus was I deprived of any 
Christian name other than that which in old days sent 
a thrill through the unhappy populations of Berwick- 
upon-Tweed and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. But I have 
more than once regretted the surname of Grant Duff, 
borne by my father and father's father. Grant Duff 
of Eden and historian and Governor of the Mahrattas i 
from Sattara for more than twelve years, under the 
East India Company. My late uncle, my father's 
brother, Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, 
G.C.I.E., G.C.S.I., to whom I shall refer later, also 
distinguished himself in India as Governor of Madras, 

^ Mr. Murray has just issued a reprint of this work, which has held 
its own as the chief authority on this part of our Empire for well 
over a hundred years. 



20 EARLIEST DAYS 

and I myself have always felt a strong inclination to 
study that country, an inclination which did not find 
favour with my parents, who refused for too much 
love to allow me to visit India at the age of seventeein 
at my uncle's invitation from Madras. I have oftem 
wished that I had made earlier acquaintance with the 
great country, which my own blood has done somethinlgl 
to consolidate with the British Em^pire. 

There is interesting evidence of the value of my 
grandfather's contribution in Leslie Stephen's Life of 
his brother, Sir James Fitz Jamfes Stephen, the Judge 
of the Supreme Court, whoni I used often to meet at 
York House. He was the best physical and mental 
specimen of a judge that ever I met. His great moral 
and intellectual powers were encased in a bulky and 
ponderous body. He was at every point Rhadamanthus. 
Even twhen dealing with such kickshaws as muttonl- 
cutlets and cold ham at the breakfast table, he did 
so in a severe and final manner, for they were spieedilyj 
condemned to disappearance, while the Judge of the 
Supreme Court maintained his perfectly unbiassed 
supremacy. He had, of course, like all of us, his 
human side, and genuinely enjoyed good literature. I 
remember his reading the Divine Comedy with my 
aunt. Lady Grant Duff, who also had something of the 
severe and judicial about her, yet in her case coupled 
with and softened by a generous, loving and amiable 
disposition — when she allowed it to appear. I re- 
member thinking as I watched the two fine heads posing! 
over a difficult passage that here was just such an 
audience as Dante would have liked. For no poet 
has ever been more severely judicial than he in his 
great works ; one feels that on many occasions he has 
positively enjoyed uttering the sentence of punishment 



JAMES GRANT DUFF 21 

as he " brands " the culprit and passes on. Were I 
Landor I should write a dialogue between Sir James 
and Dante on comparative mediaeval and modern juris- 
prudence, with Sir Charles Darling intervening for a 
little light relief. 

Leslie Stephen's reference to my grandfather reads 
as follows : " The Indian Empire is the mbst marvellous 
proof of this (he is referring to the many great actions 
which are completely forgotten) that the world can 
supply. A man died not long ago who, at twenty-five 
years of age, with no previous training', was set to 
govern a kingdom with absolute power, and who did 
govern it so wisely and firmly that he literally changied 
a wilderness into a fruitful land'. Probably no one 
who reads these lines will guess to whom they allude. 
I can, however, say tha.t they allude to James Grant 
Duff ( 1 789-1 858), author of the History of the 
Mahrattas, and father of his (Sir James Fitz JamJes 
Stephen's) friend. Sir Mountstuart." 

My grandfather eventually returned to England and 
married a very beautiful girl, whose parents insisted 
upon his abandoning further service in India as a 
condition of the marriage. He refused most brilliant 
offers equivalent to the India Council of to-day, and 
retired to his estate of Eden in Banffshire on the River 
Deveron. Here he spent a fortune on farming, and 
revelled in the possession of a herd of black cattle, 
still famous in the annals of the North of Scotland. 
But my father tells me that his talk always returned 
to India : where a man's Ufe-work was, there shall 
his heart be also. 

Shortly after my first appearance on any stage, and 
the vocal efforts that accompanied it, my parents removed 
to St. Germain, whence my father wtent and came 



22 EARLIEST DAYS 

daily from, the Embassy. He describes his colleagues 
at that time as devoted to French society, not exactly 
of the Faubourg St. Germain type, which it is popularly 
supposed that diplomatists frequent, but which is rarely 
at any period entered by them. Lurid tragedies and 
comedies in little have comfe dowln to me, but I' shall 
draw a veil over them! and over the ashes that have 
so long been at rest, for it is a curious fact that all 
my father's colleagues in the Chancellery at this period 
were in their graves within ten years of his arrival at 
the Embassy. For some of them, as my friend Colonel 
Claude Lowther used to say at Madrid : V Atnbassade 
c'etait VEmbrassade! 

His posts, prior to Paris, had been Dresden and then 
St. Petersburg, where the Ambassador wlas Lord Napier 
and Ettrick, whom I remember when I was a very 
little boy, and can still visualize with the help of a 
quaint little photo taken by my mother, a pioneer of 
the gentle art of sun -painting — but the victim of those 
days was fully conscious of being the target of the 
camera, and was indeed commanded to remain perfectly 
motionless for periods that to us would seem eternities. 
But I Ido not wonder that Lord Napier submitted to all 
this at my mother's hands with the best possible grace, 
for no one has yet been met with capable of resisting 
her charm. Attributable no doubt to a like cause ,was 
Lord Napier's acceptance of the post of godfather to 
the writer of these lines — ^godfather and bestower of 
a golden goblet surrounded with the signs of the Zodiac 
in relief, from which he has imbibed many milky 
potations. 

My father, as I have said, first made my mother's 
acquaintance at St. Petersburg, where her father, Mr. 
John Henry Morgan, occupied a unique position. He was 




LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA. 



To face p. 22. 



"DINDIN" 23 

the founder of the first Anglo -Russian bank, and had 
also an imtnense timber business. He afterwards took 
into partnership old Mr. John Hubbard, and did every- 
thing for him and for his family, which ^still flourishes 
in his descendants, and has acquired the peerage of 
Addington. At this period my grandfather, Mr. Morgan, 
married the beautiful Miss Mary Parland, my dearly 
loved grandmother " Dindin," whose memory is as 
bright and fresh with me to-day as though I had just 
met her with her scent-bottle in one hand and two 
pink bon-bons in the other for her pet grandson, who 
is waiting at the bottom of the great winding stone 
staircase of Delgaty to go out fishing by the lake. 
She is sitting on the green bench there at the end — 
I can smell the varnish on it now, and I am agairv 
engaged in the prodigious adventure of the first trout 
which is leaping its height out of the water, as I am! 
leaping mine with joy on the bank. We land it be- 
tween us, and bear it home in triumph to be admired 
by all the family, and then by the entire kitchen 
staft", before it is eventually rescued from two very 
small scaly hands that pertinaciously cling to their 
treasure. 

Dearest of grandmothers, early called away, in your 
soft dark dress with the peacock blue and green lights 
upon it ! I have only seen you smiling, always sweet 
and smiling, throug'h all these years, though I fear that 
your own early days were by no means all made of 
smiles . 

Imagine taking a beautiful young woman, accustomed 
to every luxury, to Archangel for her honeymoon ! Yet 
I believe that Mr. Morgan did this. Archangel to-day 
is a dismal spot enough, difficult of access even before 
Bolshevism. .What must it have been a hundred years 



24 EARLIEST DAYS 

ago? And she had to stay there for months and 
months while Mr. Morgan made wonderful journeys 
in quest of new forests to conquer, returning to his fair 
young wife with tales of wild sport among the elk 
and the bears, which atone to a man for the desolation. 
Small wonder that when she returned to St. Petersburg 
a queen of beauty, she danced the morning in for the 
hearts of her courtiers. 

Mr. Morgan was a great sportsman, and in winter, 
even while living in St. Petersburg, used to fling busi- 
ness and pleasure — his pleasures were numerous — to the 
winds — when the peasant arrived with news of a bear 
marked down in its cave. On one occasion he answered 
such an appeal as usual, during a sudden thaw towards 
the end of February, but he had on his long snowshoes, 
made for gliding over the six-foot -deep snow, and the 
servant who was with him to stand beside, as often 
before, with the spear in readiness, should the bullet 
fail to speed quite straight and the bear come on. 
This time my grandfather's aim' was not quite so 
accurate as usual ; the bear rolled over, but recovered 
himself and saw his enemy. He was not far off, and 
there was no time to load the old-fashioned rifle ; but 
my grandfather stood his ground in quiet confidence, 
with his eyes on the bear, just putting his hand behind 
him for the spear. No spear was there! Turning,, 
he .saw the coward scudding away with the weapon ; 
he had been unable to resist the promptings of fear 
when he saw the bear come on. There was no chance 
of escape by flight now, for the bear was hardly forty 
yards off and moving amazingly fast, so my grand- 
father did the only thing possible — he slipped out of 
his snow-shoes and sunk down in the deep snow until 
his head was below its level. Thus he hoppd that the 



MY GRANDFATHER AND NICHOLAS I 25 

wounded monster might not find him. But bruin came 
on, guided by his nose, and paused over the hole in 
the white carpet. Then rip, rip, with a last effort, 
as his mighty claws rent the cheeks of his slayer, and 
he himself fell dead on the top of him. 

Hours passed insensible, and my grandfather heard 
moujiks' voices. '* He is dead, or hie is nearly dead, little 
brother — his blood is everywhere— better a good blow 
on the head to end his pain." 

He managed to speak, and offered them a thousand 
roubles each if they would carry him' to his sledge and 
take him to St. Petersburg. 

•On his arrival there he was again insensible, and 
the doctors ordered him to remain in the dark for many 
weeks, as both eyes were menaced. He gradually 
began to mend and to recognize those about him by 
their voices. My mother had always been his favourite, 
and he now insisted that she alone, a girl of seventeen, 
should remain at his pillow. My mother has often 
told me of that trying time, and of the shock she 
received when she saw her father's handsome face so 
fearfully imauled. 

He had long been noted as the handsomest man in 
the capital, and the Emperor Nicholas I. made him 
his especial friend. I wish we possessed, as we 
possess his many orders and decorations, a picture of 
the two walking together as they so often did along 
the Nevski Prospekt. ^Nicholas I. was the last Czar 
of all the Russias to venture unescorted along the 
streets of Petersburg, and he, too, was noted for his 
height and handsome appearance. A pretty story is 
told of him disguised at a fancy ball, to which he 
had gone incognito, like Haroun al Raschid of the 
Nights. He approached and entered into conversation 



26 EARLIEST DAYS 

with a certain fair lady, known as a wit, and after 
dancing with her, said : " Do you know with whom 
you are talking? " "I think so," she replied. " Then 
say something that shall show me you know, without 
telling." " You have the stature of your trade " {Vous 
avez la taille de voire metier) was the reply. The 
Emperor was delighted. His mysterious, end was in 
harmony with what must have been a singularly noble 
and romantic temperament. His patronage of British 
enterprise in the person of Mr. Morgan was in harmony 
with the tradition of Peter the Great, whose visit to 
London is historical. The behaviour and ideals of the 
Bolshevists and their sympathizers outside Russia makes 
the life and deeds of the latter monarch read like a 
mild tract. 

My grandfather had three children, a son and two 
daughters, of whom my mother was the youngest. 
Before the appearance of my father at St. Petersburg a 
number of Russians had asked to be allowed to pay 
their addresses, but Mr. Morgan was determined that , 
neither of his daughters should marry a Russian, which 
apart from any selfish consideration, in view of recent 
events, seems to bear evidence of considerable foresight. 
My uncle, Delmar Morgan, the geographer and explorer 
of Mongolia with Prejevalsky, was also a sceptic as 
to Russian stability, and as trustee of my mother's 
future, insisted on removing a considerable portion of 
it to England, greatly to the disgust of his fellow 
trustees. It is curious how blind most people were 
as to the instability of the Russian Empire owing to 
the instability of the Russian character, which is the 
true cause of the complete catastrophe. Of the many 
Russians I have met the late Prince Alexis Orloff, with 
whom I used to, Sitay in the Rue St. Dominique, Paris, 




MARY A. MORGAN. 

Tlie author's maternal grandmother. 



To face p. 26. 



THE JUDGE'S LITTLE JOKE 27 

was the only one who ren^ovied his fortune in time. 
My (greatest Russian friend had, in 191 3, a revenue 
of eight millions of francs, or about £400,000, from 
his Russian properties. In 191 6, nil. I think this 
would be difficult to beat. 

My dear sweet aunt Minnie, mother's sister, married 
an Irishman, Sir Thomas Snagge, the County Court 
Judge, well knowln^ at the Garrick Club and on his 
Oxford circuit. He was an agreeable, witty man, a 
little too fond, perhaps, of insisting upon his joke being 
taken ,as sterling when it was not more than, shall 
we say, aluminium. There he sometimes caught a 
tartar, as once when out shooting with us at Delgaty, 
he remarked to a very small lad next him in the line 
and carrying his cartridges : " I've made an appoint- 
ment to meet a hare by that big tree we're coming to." 
The lad said nothing. They walked on a few steps, 
when the hare got up right enough, and Sir Thomas 
discharged both barrels without producing any visible 
effect. " It's no the hare that's to blame at any 
rate," came in a shrill treble from his Honour's 
side. The Judge made no more jokes with that 
boy. 

Sir Thomas left a large family, of whom' the eldest 
son, Mordaunt, is the most distinguished. He now 
occupies, curiously enough, the exact position as County 
Court Judge, and covers the samfe counties as his late 
father. The loss of an eye at Eton football has not 
been allowed by him to damage his career. 

I observe that I have again left the cradle, and 
may as well now do so for good and all. We went 
down to Fontainebleau soon after the incident of the 
Marquis, and my father used to go to and from the 
Embassy to the Forest. But the bricks and mortar 



28 EARLIEST DAYS 

of the Rue St. Honore and the future Embassy mad'e 
an ever lessening appeal to him as compared with his 
" ain fireside " in Scotland. He had no eye for the 
razzle-dazzle of the Second Empire, and soon sent in 
his resignation. His German scholarship had won him] 
the Taylorian at Oxford when he was at Balliol 
College. His fellow scholar on that occasion was the 
poet Swinburne, with whom, however, he tells me that, 
unlike his son, he had no intercourse. Swinburne won 
the French Taylorian the year my father won the 
German. 

While Delgaty was being got ready for us my 
parents took a small estate in Fife called Ramorney, 
and also bought 70 Lancaster Gate, which is con- 
nected with some of my earliest recollections. I was 
still in the nursery at this period, but had already 
developed a love for zoology and caressed a stuffed 
guinea-pig with ardour, greatly regretting that it was 
not allowed to be alive. 70 Lancaster Gate, had 
a wall staircase crowned with " a domfe of many coloured 
glass," and I used often to contemplate this with 
admiration. Where I met, at sixteen, with the line in 
Shelley, my memory immediately called up the lofty 
building, with its dark stairway and giant front 
drawing-room facing my father's grim, dim study. The 
school-room looked out upon a fine selection of angular 
drab -coloured brick walls and chimneys. My brother 
Percy and I sat in this room with our French governess, 
who also instructed us (very imperfectly to judge by 
results) in arithmetic and other R's, made as unpleasant 
as possible according to the tradition which still held 
sway in teaching. Yet Mademoiselle Amaud was a 
delightful person — I can still see her clearly with a 
large pencil stuck between two buttons of her dress, 



HOCK HAY OF DELGATY 29 

trying to make us familiar with the language of my 
native land. The angular outlook and the bewildered 
pupils might have presented a theme for cubist per- 
spectives. :Our walks with the nurses were chiefly in 
Kensington Gardens, where I added entomology to my 
interests by capturing several butterflies. At a later 
period I sailed a boat on the Round Pond, but my 
pleasure therein was damped' by the presence of a m'an 
with a real little steamer that puffed and didn't care 
a bit which way the wind blew or what height were the 
waves, rrhe Round Pond is one of the few things 
which seems to have remained quite unchanged since 
the 'seventies, and I can easily step back into them 
by merely standing a few mbmeints at its brink — same 
little waves, same little ships, salnfe little folk as (Of 
yore including myself. 

Soon after this period "a tutor was engagfed for, myself 
and my brother Percy. Mr. Edmund John MelluisK 
Irons was son of a stern divine, \\^ho had written upon,' 
St. Paul and produced a numerous family. He wai& 
tall and rather cadaverous in appearance, with sunken 
eyes, a stoop, and' a rather sinister smile. To him' our 
education was confided, and we were sent up fromi 
Lancaster Gate to Delgaty in the summer of 'y']. 
Delgaty was lookini^ its best, surrounded with lofty elm 
and lime trees, above which it towered its hundred feet. 
Grim battlements and gargoyles with the bust of Hoch 
Hay of Delgaty fixed in his niche looked dofwn ;froim 
the suminit. The origin of Hoch Hay is objscure, but 
he was probably modelled upon some ancient scion 
of the House of Hay, former possessors of the Castle. 
Others relate that " Hoch Hay " was an exclamation 
uttered by same warrior Hay, who gave vent to it as 
he Imopped his brow after repelling an onslaught of 



30 EARLIEST DAYS 

the Danes, in which he had been successful by 'dint 
of harnessing his unwilling retainers to the yoke — witness 
the motto : Sub Jugum. Shall I continue? 

Delgaty has been in the hands of several proprietors, 
mostly of my family, since the days of Hay of Delgaty, 
when, with Strathbogie, it was one of the two strong- 
holds of the Catholics in the north of Scotland. In 
the early nineteenth century, however, it passed into 
the hands of our cousins, the Fifes. The lato 
Duke told me that he had spent much of hia 
childhood there, and often fished in the bum of 
Idoch. His father is one of my earliest recollections 
at Delgaty, a wonderful old gentleman with a most 
magnificent head of chestnut hair. I remfember I was 
gazing at it with admiration when he came oVer from' 
Duff House to see us and was sitting in the small 
drawing-room ; then, to my utter amazement, he 
suddenly removed what appeared to mfe to be his 
scalp, and producing a small comb began carefully to 
arrange the curls of his head as it rested upon his 
knee. I was too young to remember any of the good 
stories for which he was famed — he was equally friendly 
with all— patriarchal and benign as became the owner 
of more than a million acres — he would engage in 
animated exchange of pleasantries with the farmers on 
his way out from Aberdeen to Duff House, and on 
one occasion the farmers, being sure that he would 
again offer them a draft of whisky from the capacious 
flask, which had already been circulating in the carriage, 
managed to abstract it from his pocket, expecting to 
enjoy his consternation at the loss. Not at all : the 
Earl merely placed his hand in the other pocket 
and produced another flask of equal size, which 
he handed round as though nothing out of the 



I HOOK MY TUTOR 31 

way had occurred, disdaining to inquire as to the fate 
of the first. 

Delgaty is nearly forty miles from' Aberdeen. Remote 
country places must have been far gayer in the old 
days than they are now. Aberdeen in winter was the 
ideal of the inhabitants of the north-eastern part of 
Scotland/Edinburgh beimg a kind of Mecca only attained 
by the happy few. As to London, our cousin and' 
neighbour, Garden Duff of Hatton, once showed me 
the accounts of his grandfather who had actually 
penetrated to London, and (characteristically) had kept 
careful note of his expenses from the historical " sax- 
pence " to sums yet more considerable. My own for- 
bears used to pay potentous visits to one another in; 
family chariots, which would carry them fifty miles 
or so from their homes in a day. The visit was usually 
three weeks. Nowadays, during the sumtofer, there is 
a flood of all manner of folk from the south, who hire 
the old places and rush back to London when they 
have had their fill of fresh air and lost sufficient salmon- 
flies. ,With the winter, the whole countryside sleeps 
beneath its pall of snow. 

We arrived at Delgaty in the summer, and in the 
interv^als of learning Latin, which Mr. Irons did teach 
a little, while neglecting such trifles as mathematics, 
history, and geography, I proceeded to teach him hoiw 
to cast a trout fly. He was astonishingly igmorant of 
sport in any form, and despite repeated warnings 
persisted in standing about ten yards to my rear, with 
the natural result that the fly (my best one, as I 
remarked as it was being extracted) became firmly 
imbedded in the fleshy part of his nose. This was 
a painful business for both of us in more ^senses than 
one. Out shooting he was death to cartridges and 



32 EARLIEST DAYS 

dangerous to beaters, but otherwise harmless. The old 
head-keeper, Terras, used to place him: at remote points 
for " a shot at a hare," but the latter was quite sale. 
I think he must have suffered from obliquity of vision, 
but his eagerness and confidencei in his own capacities 
were quite inexhaustible. 

Hopeless as a sportsman and pedagogue, he Was 
better endowed as a lover, and proceeded to pay couirt 
to the daughter of a neighbouring laird, for which 
purpose he borrowed my pony. I was delighted to 
lend it, as my brother and I were thus rid of his 
presence for a good part of the day. Unfortunately, 
however, the pony rather resented the six -foot -two 
of the amorous preceptor, and after one or two 
attempts landed him feafely on the gravel drive, to 
our (considerable amuserrient. 

Poor Irons, his mild career as extempore Don Juan 
was cut short by the return of my parents. He was 
dismissed, and I believe died soon after of heart 
disease, whether accelerated by his experiences in the 
north or not I cannot tell. I have never been fortunate 
in pedagogues. 

Percy and I went over to see our neighbour, dear 
old Mrs. Tait Gordon, of Fyvie Castle, during these 
months we were in the iron grip. She was a very; 
quaint old lady, most kind to us boys, whom she plied 
with all manner of toffees and other treacly delights. 
But with grown-up visitors her methods were different. 
Speaking with a broad Scots accent, she used, after 
breakfast, to announce out the orders for the day : 
" Mr. McLachlan, ye'll go and row Lady Sempill and 
the Misses Duff on the lake till the stroke of twelve^ 
then ye can just gae and catch a few troots in the 
Ythen to our dinner — and see ye 're no late for lundh." 



FYVIE CASTLE— THEN AND NOW 33 

" Sir Archie, ye'll tak' the Dowager of Balbumie for 
a walk round the policies, and see ye keep oot o' the 
field with the bull in't, for I ken ye can tak guid' 
care o' yersel, but I'm: no sae sure aboot the leddys " etc. 
People used to be in fits of suppressed laughter before 
she had finished her comlmandments. All delighted 
to go and stay at Fyvie to be ordered about for a 
day or two. I wonder if the late Lord Astor had e^V^r 
heard of her ; but his parties, although people wtere 
carefully told what to do, were not to be comlpared. 
for amusement with the Fyvie of old days. 

Fyvie has patssed into the hands of a Mr. Forbes 
Leith, created Lord Leith, and decorated in what I 
believe is known as the best mid-Victorian taste. Its 
old red sandstone walls now hide their blushes beneath 
swathes of tartan, and the atmosphere is Scots- 
Belgravian. 

Fyvie is better known than Delgaity, and so are its 
legends, connected with lack of direct heirs — ^male and 
the three weeping stones — <" the last ye'll never git " — 
and till then there will never be an heir male to Fyvie — 
will keep for perhaps another volume. At Delgaty we 
are blessed with the ghost of the lady who was hurled 
from the battlements by a monk — the illustration shows 
that she had some distance to fall. Personally, I have 
never been honoured with a sight of her, though I have 
given her ample opportunity. She is said to walk 
up the hundred steps of the grand staircase at mid- 
night. I have often vainly awaited her tread. But 
some years ago a Mrs. L. O.,' neighbour, for whom! 
I had just been writing verses to commemorate a son 
killed on the Afghan frontier, was sitting with me 
in the hall. She suddenly asked if I had ever seen 
* Names altered. ^ 

3 



34 EARLIEST DAYS 

"any of the Delgaty ghosts." I replied that I had 
not. " Well, I have seen one of them," she said 
quietly. 

"You remember, no doubt, my husband Dick?" 
I replied that I had known him as a little boy when 
he was a young man. " He died in a tragic way 
in a railway accident ten years ago. He and I were 
staying at Delgaty, and had brought with us our baby 
girl, whose cot was by the fireplace in our bedroom 
on the night in question. It was 'mid-October and 
chilly iweather, so a big fine had been made in thie 
cloister room, that large south bedrOom' with the three 
windows, the four-poster bed, and the queer little 
squint-hole to the north cut into six foot thick of wall. 
When we came upi to bed about eleven our baby girl 
was sleeping peacefully and the fire burned high and 
bright. Dick was a sound sleepier, and was soon 
audibly in dreamland. As I blew out my candle, after 
reading a few pages of your Song of the Stewarts:, 
which your mother had lent me, I remember, 1 glanced 
at the cot which was between us and the fire, some 
little distance off in thie big room. As a jule I slept 
as soundly as Dick, and I don't know what ,woke me 
suddenly with a start. The fire had sunk to a dull 
red glow ; I gazed at it a moment or two, still half 
asleep, but could not see the cot clearly. I thought 
at first it was the dim light of the fite (I had not 
struck a match) that made the place w^here it should 
be so dark. But suddenly I caught sight of a part 
of the white covering and noticed that the darkness 
between me and the cot had slightly moved. Thoroughly 
startled and aroused, I sat up in bed and stared in- 
tently in the direction of the cot. Again a slight 
motion, and this time I saw that a figure draped in 



A DELGATY GHOST 35 

black was bending over the child. I gave Dick a 
violent push : he woke up with * What is it ? ' coming 
drowsily from his lipis. I pointed to the cot, and as I 
did so, saw something else white — a faint circlet of 
white in the air above the cradle. Suddenly it dis- 
appeared, and in its place I clearly saw a man's 
emaciated face with black eyes blazing with hatred. 
That, too, disappeared as suddenly as the circlet, which 
I then realized must have been the scapular of a monk. 
Meanwhile, Dick had jumped out of bed and rushed to 
the child. I lit the gas and rushed to my baby. She 
was still sleeping peacefully ; no harm had apparently 
come to her, but if I had not awakened' I aJm! sure the 
monk would have achieved his purpose, whatever it 
was. Dick said he certainly saw something move and 
that was all, but quite enough to set him in motion 
too ! We searched the room and the landing opening 
into four other bedrooms carefully on the spot, but 
saw nothing. We thought it better to say nothing 
about the matter in the castle next day, as servants 
are so easily frightened. Your family never heard 
the story." 

" What became of the little girl? Did she growl 
up? " 

" Yes, she lived till she Was twenty-three, married, 
and died having a baby in Jamaica at the age of 
twenty-three." 

I hope my readers will not look upon me as ovter 
credulous twhen I say that I have every confidence 
in the truth of this curious story, told in much the 
same words as I have used and on an pccasion when 
the teller was certainly in no mood for flights of 
imagination. It is also corroborated in my experience 
by other events, some of which I may mention later. 



36 EARLIEST DAYS 

Aberdeenshire, though it does not contain Glamis 
Castle within its marches, is yet so full of haunted 
castles and towers that, as was once said of another 
castle, one does not have to reach the dwelling house 
to begin having experiences, but overtakes a hearse 
and pair in the avenue. Thus one is never really dull 
in the north. There is always society — of a sort. 

Forglen House is a near neighbour on the River 
Deveron, but a thing of yesterday compared with Delgaty, 
though the Abercrombys have been there from father to 
son for a good many generations, and Forglen has now 
got a stretch of the Deveron which used to belong 
to Delgaty. At Delgaty the dining-room is built out 
(on the left in the photo reproduced) and is about fifty 
yards from the kitchen on the right, with the billiard- 
room above it, connected by a long passage with the 
main hall (in the centre of the picture). The dungeon, 
to the north, goes down perpendicularly about thirty 
feet, and must have been a pleasant place to spend 
a week-end in during the month of January in the 
eleventh century. The oldest date actually carved in 
the old red sandstone of the library wall is 1525, 
but the castle was a very much older place, repaired at 
that date. In the library are four heads carved in the 
old red sandstone, said to represent a murdered child, 
his parents, and the murderer, which I always thought 
a delightfully mediaeval touch. 

At Forglen are none of these mediaeval m'emories, 
but modem comfort, which some prefer to gargoyles. 
Among these should certainly be numbered the former 
Lady Abercromby, formerly a strenuous social worker 
among the rich, and re-married to an Englishman 
(Lord Northbrooke) since the death of Sir Robert, who 
was a martyr to insomnia. 



COUNTY NEIGHBOURS 37 

Hatton and Craigston Castles are respectively south 
and north of us at little distance. Annie Duff of Hatton;, 
sweet, bronze-haired creature, was one of my earliest 
flirts when I was about twelve, and she and Miss 
Urquhart of Meldrum some years my senior. Her 
early death was regretted by the whole countryside. 



CHAPTER II 

SCHOOL, SALMON, POETRY 

Song of the Stewart's — Lochiel — Prince Charlie — Dotheboys-and-Parents 
House — My first Fight — Stag Beetles — My big Salmon— Golden Minutes 
at Whipps Cross — Playing the Game — Woodcote House — Tom Brown's 
Schooldays. 

The north-east coast of Scotland played a very 
important part in the history of Scotland, but that was 
very jmany years ago, in the days of Bruce and the 
Red Comyn (now written Cumining). The latter ruled 
this district in the thirteenth century and, unfortunately 
for themselves, fell out with the powerful family of 
Bruce, who harried Buchan (a part of Aberdeenshire), 
with results that were visible for centuries. This, how- 
ever, is not the place to dwell upon the terrible and 
interesting annals of the north or upon the Battle of 
Harlaw, fought in the* fourteenth century, about fifty miles 
from Delgaty, near Aberdeen, where the wild highland 
clans were finally defeated by the lowlanders. It 
was really one mode of civilization against another. 
I have touched upon the subject elsewhere in the 
Prelude to the Song of the Stewarts, which was 
originally published in two editions, one for the Stewart 
Society, and is now out of print ; but I hope it will be 
reprinted. 

In this connection and from the anecdotal viewpoint 
may, however, be mentioned one of the two occasions 
when my imagination has done its worst whilst 1 slept. 
Would that they were more frequent 1 I would willingly 



PRINCE CHARLIE'S COUNTRY 39 

sleep a month to wake up with a lyric, as it were, 
ready-made in my brain. But the mood refuses to be 
induced and is no doubt dependent upon a peculiar 
collocation of circumstances which are rarely found in 
equipoise. 

I had been wandering about the Western Highlands, 
and at the request of Mrs. Cameron Head o;f 
Inveraillort, had consented to pass a couple of nights 
beneath her roof. This is the heart of the " Prince 
Charlie " country, for it was here he landed with his 
forlorn band of half-a-dozen outlaws, and by the magic 
of his personality and name, won over the chief of 
the Camerons (Lochiel), who promised to rally his 
clan. It was on this v^ry hillside he waited anxiously 
all day until evening came, waited with sinking heart, 
for there was no sign of the clan or its chieftain. 
At the very last of the last, however, and as the sun 
was setting, the wild strains of the bagpipes were heard 
in the distance, and Lochiel, followed by all his men, 
came streaming, hundreds strong, across the rugged, 
heathery hill. How these hundreds grew to thousands 
and Prince Charlie marched upon and occupied 
Edinburgh are events that have been the theme of 
countless historians (headed by the greatest authority 
on the Jacobites, J. B. Blaikie, of Edinburgh, an admir- 
able writer) and novelists galore. 

Well, there I was at InveraiUort, plumped down in 
the middle of a not very exhilarating country-house 
party — ^I remember Lord and Lady Sligo as purple 
patches ! — ^in which were several young ladies more or 
less attractive. On the second and last night of my 
visit I was attacked in front and rear with birthday- 
books and requests that I would write original poems 
in them. To oblige the first-comer I did write five or 



40 SCHOOL, SALMON, POETRY 

six origimal lines which I hope have entirely disappeared 
from the face of creation and was about to retire |to, 
rest, as I had to rise at 5.30 to catch a seven o'clock 
train in the morning-, when a Miss Mackenzie, whom 
I had not previously identified with the Camerons, 
appeared with her book. I was rather taken aback 
and could think of nothing much to the point, so 
suggested writing out a poem of Verlaine's that I knew 
by heart. This offer was accepted, but I noticed on 
its completion that the owner of the volume was rather 
disappointed. Mrs. Head told me, as I was bidding 
her good-night and thanking her for the (invariably) 
delightful visit, that the Miss Mackenzie in question 
was a granddaughter of a former chief of the Clan 
Cameron and a direct descendant of the chief who has 
led. his followers to join Prince Charlie. I remember 
going' to bed greatly repenting that I had not been 
able to think of anything original to write in her book, 
seeing that I intended to write the Song of the Stewarts 
descriptive of the long and splendid rule of the dynasty 
which closed in so tragically, so romantically with the 
battles of the '45. 1 tossed about for a few minutes, but 
was very tired after a long day on the hill and soon fell 
into a sound sleep. Suddenly I awoke, contrary to 
all my usual habits ; it was pitch dark, and when 1 
struck a light my watch said 3 a.m. In my head 
was coursing the lilt of a new poem, which I hastily 
scribbled down and then immediately fell asleep again 
until 1 was awakened by my servant at 5.30. I 
remember leaving it with the butler to be placed upon 
Miss Mackenzie's plate at breakfast that morning. The 
poem has been several times set to music, but I think 
the best setting has been that of my father. Here is 
the poem : 



THE DREAM POEM 41 

A STIRRUP-CUP 

Lady whose ancestor 

Fought for Prince Charhe, 
Met once and nevermore. 

No time for parley ! 

Yet drink a glass with me 

Over the water : 
Memories pass to me. 

Chieftain's Granddaughter ! 

" Say, will he come again ? " 

Nay, Lady, never. 
" Say, will he never reign ? " 

Yea, Lady, ever. 

Yea, for the heart of us 

Follows Prince Charlie ; 
There's not a part of us 

Bows not as barley. 

Under the breeze that blew 

Up the Atlantic, 
Wafting the one, the true 

Prince, the romantic. 

Back to his native land 

Over the water : 
Here's to Prince Charlie and 

Lochiel's Granddaughter ! 

So much then for the nonce about the north of 
Scotland. Returning to my boyhood, I must mention 
that, although the benefits to be derived from an educa- 
tion in Scotland are, in my opinion, quite equal and 
possibly (for a Scottish boy) superior to an English 
education, my parents decided that my brother Percy 
and I should proceed to Aldin House, Slough, a 
preparatory school for Eton. Aldin House is still 
visible, with its Italian fagade, from the windows of 
the Great Western just before one reaches Slough. 

I believe it is or was lately a lunatic asylum ; but 
whether any of the former masters remained as per- 
manent boarders after the pandemonium of the boys' 
school was closed, I have no intention of ascertaining. 



42 SCHOOL, SALMON, POETRY 

What a monstrous and foolish tradition this is of 
the private school I Boys would be better taught at 
home until they go to Eton. A private school like 
Aldin House of my day might be described as 
Dotheboys-and-Parents Hall. The mother is done out 
of her children's society, the boys are done out of more 
or less everything, including education. I remember 
our mother coming to the school when first we went 
and earnestly begging Mrs. Hawtrey to be kind to us in 
the prim drawing-room with its Rubicon of a passage 
between the boys' part of the building and that reseryed 
for the use of the head-master. She might as well 
have asked Queen Victoria, for we never saw Mrs. 
Hawtrey. I am quite certain that I should have learned 
twenty times as much at home and gone to Eton far 
better prepared than ever I was at Aldin House, had 
I remained at home in the charming society of my 
mother, who was quite miserable at losing us, and we, 
I think, were equally wretched at losing sight of her 
sweet face as she waved a tear-drenched adieu and 
entered the carriage that was to take her to Windsor. 

Percy and I shared a big angle-room in the south- 
west corner of the building. We must have presented 
a quaint picture in our ill-fitting pepper-and-salt suits, 
the result of the village tailor's efforts, in marked con- 
trast to the smart cut of most of the other small boys. 
We were partitioned off from two other boys, my old 
friend, now Colonel, Hugh Warrender, of the Grenadier 
Guards — friend through all these years — and Wurz- 
Dundas. Hugh, even at this early age, was an exquisite, 
but in later years Achieved heights of sartorial perfec- 
tion undreamed-of by most. I remember his once 
answering my inquiry as to his method by sayingf : "I 
drop in at my tailor's nearly every afternoon to try 



MY BROTHER PERCY 43 

on something, and damn the ass of a' cutter, it's ithe 
only way of getting something fit to wear." Hugh is the 
type of the dolce far niente capable of throwing all 
the uncrumpled rose-leaves of life away, to sleep instead 
upon rocks, and to rise at dawn, as he proved during ' thje 
war, in Palestine and elsewhere : a really distinguished 
soldier who will be vexed at being praised. My brother 
Percy had a pleasant time at Aldin House : he was 
a dreamy boy and developed intcx a yet dreamier youth, 
marrying for love and dying young with a couple 
of charming stories to his name. He was witty and 
amusing in congenial company, and would have. perhaps 
produced some fine mature work had he been more 
fortunate in his choice ' of a wife . I shall always keep 
his little story of the Priceless Orchid among my 
favourite books. Our ways lay apart at Aldin House 
during the day, as ' I was a little above him in 
the school. 

Mr. Edward Hawtrey, one of the masters, known 
as Beetle owing to his near-sightedness had, never- 
theless, spied out my rather exceptional suit of 
pepper-and-salt with a dash of mustard, and I 
remember his advising me to be " as like the 
other boys as possible," eyeing my garments critically 
the while. Criticism was not confined, however, 
to Beetle Hawtrey, but several of the boys were 
not slow to condemn the sartorial efforts of the far 
north. Among these was a bright boy named Reeve, 
with smooth, auburn hair and very brown, staring eyes, 
whose seat was exactly behind mine in school. I was 
suddenly made aware of his critical disapproval by 
receiving a series of sharp kicks during the lesson. 
Turning round to expostulate, I was blamed for talking 
and received a bad mark. Immediately after school, in 



44 SCHOOL, SALMON, POETRY 

my turn, I handed a " bad mark " to Master 'ReetvjeJ,; 
somewhere in the region of the right eye. We were 
at once surrounded and separated by some bigger boys 
who were passing. They told us not to worry — ^we 
should have the honour of fighting it out behind the 
Pavilion the next day in the afternoon. My experience 
of the ring had been limited to boxing with my fathbr's 
forefinger, which he would occasionally prod into my 
chest. Reeve's was an unknown quantity, but fortun- 
ately for me he turned out to be equally ignorant of 
the craft. We set about our battle with a very good 
will, and I can still see before me Reeve's blazing! 
brown eyes and ruffled hair as we pommelled one 
another's countenances. After two pairs of (eventually) 
polychrome eyes and a good deal of bleeding at the 
nose on both sides, a draw was the verdict given by 
the bigger boys who had arranged the little exhibition, 
carried out with perfect tact and good (though ratherl 
painful) feeling. Reeve and I made friends afterwards, 
as is so often the case in schools, and I found tha,t m{y 
peculiar garments no longer met with open criticism'. 
I never fought again at Hawtrey's — and I changed 
my tailor. 

Here, as elsewhere, the classes were far too large 
to be managed efficiently, and boys followed more or 
less their own desires. I being naturally studious, 
managed, however, to bring home the prizes for French;, 
for History, and for Latin. I still possess Hypatia, 
in red calf (for Classical Lore), Farrer's Language 
and Languages (for French), and The Roman and the 
Teuton (History), in lemon and green, as relics of 
those early days. My family, to my surprise, did 
not seem greatly impressed by my success, which, 
to childish eyes, seemed important, and 1 remember 



MY FIRST FIGHT 45 

foolishly deciding thi'at work unappreciated wias not 
worth while ; an unfortunate decision only too 
faithfully carried out, both at Eton and Oxford, 
which for me were one long revel, b'roken with 
exclamations of surprise, when the sticks of the 
fireworks fell back from the sky upon my head. But 
fireworks have their beauty, and frolic is not all dead 
loss, as some would have us believe. 

There were moments at Hawtrey's when the whole 

school throbbed in harmony and acted in unison. The 

chief of these were not the weekly readings out of 

places in class, rewards ahd punishments, nor the 

awful adjurations to be good hurled hebdomadally at 

us from the pulpit. Rather were they those of the 

school fights and the appearance of the Stag Beetle. 

These great beetles used drowsily to hum their way 

across the playground, during the summer time, at an 

altitude of about twenty feet, followed by volleys of 

bats, balls, caps, stumps — ^anything that came handy. 

The whole school was out to capture the invader, and 

it was rarely that one of these beetles made its escape. 

Whoever eventually caught or brought it down was 

bound to bring it to the captain of the cricket EleV|en, 

who adjudged the prize to that one among us who 

(in the opinion of the others) least deserved it. Once 

I was the recipient and carefully carried my treasure 

to my bedroom, where I placed it in the top left-hand 

drawer of my chest. Alas, that I had not chosen the 

right, for the comely auburn-locked Bertha Buxton, 

matron and my first love, had a way of depositing jin 

that receptacle, during the morning, a delicately buttered 

roll from the head-master's table. These I used 

secretly to consume (sharing with Percy) and, unknown 

to him and to all the rest of the world, bestow, in return. 



46 SCHOOL, SALMON, POETRY 

ardent kisses of the dawn. What was poor Bertha's 
astonishment on this occasion, when, on opening the 
said drawer, roll in hand, an enormous beetle spread its 
wings and buzzed into her face. She told me she had 
nearly fallen down in a faint — ^and thus risked discovery 
in the act of conveying the illicit roll {pur rolls and cake 
were of greatly inferior quality). It took many kisses 
and semi-sincere promises of reform in the matter of 
preferring beetles to Bertha, before the longed-for 
stream of roUs began ag'ain to flow. Roll " bagging " 
at breakfast was an important feature of our training 
at Aldin House. This occurred only when some 
master, whose seat was at the top of one of the long 
tables (we were 150 boys), did not appear for break- 
fast. The boy within nearest reach of his superiors' 
roll was expected to " bag " and divide it among about 
twenty urchins, craving for something more palatable 
than the Sahara of dry bread and tasteless stodge, of 
which the head -master and Mrs. Hawtrey used to nibble 
a very small portion once a week and declare to be 
excellent. I must say that I felt rather mean as I 
swallowed a piece of the precious roll about the size 
of a florin and thought of the whole . one that ^vas 
(probably) awaiting my attention when I could slip 
away to our room. 

At Hawtrey's I made one friend, Phillips, whom I 
meet at intervals of about a decade — we quite lately met 
in Ebury Street arid I found him unchanged. Phillips 
taught me to drive tandem later on when I was at a 
tutor's at Folkestone. He encouraged me to ride, an 
accomplishment which. I had acquired upon the Shetland, 
Fairy, and upon the Orkney, Jet, at home, but had not 
carried further. This was of use to me later when I 
hunted occasionally for a brief period, with astonishing 



SCHOOLS 47 

success as regards keeping my seat in difficulties, and 
the tandem-driving enabled me to pilot the coach to St. 
Germain on the great occasion to which I shall later refer. 

None of the masters at Hawtrey's were sympathetic. 
Old Hawtrey's three sons, Jack (grim and sallow), 
Edward (short-sighted and cricketing),, George (squat 
and menacing), all taught in the school, and Charles 
was, I believe, also to have done so, had he not (wisely) 
preferred a more exciting existence on the stage, to 
the great benefit of theatre-goers. George was also 
later on an actor, and I saw him give at least one 
fine performance . 

My complete cessation of interest in school-work 
suggested to my parents the advisability of transferring 
me to Mr. Ninde's school at Woodcote House, near 
Reading, prior to Eton. A master at Hawtrey's 
discovered that I was about to flit elsewhere, and 
had the doubtful taste to interpellate me on the 
subject in the middle of his class. He was a little 
red-haired, moustachioed man, ultra emphatic and 
fond of inscribing formulas upon the blackboard, but 
singularly incapable of transferring them thence to the 
memory of his pupils. On the conclusion of his 
sarcastic remarks, I had the pluck to say : " They 
don't grow carrots at Woodcote." This giot me a 
punishment, which I completed with entire satisfaction 
and left Aldin House after two years' dalliance. 

In the holidays I was mostly up at Delgaty, and 
began my collection of the birds of Aberdeenshire, 
which contains some specimens considered worth 
mentioning in the special treatises. Such, for instance, 
are the Pied Flycatcher, the Buzzard, the Common 
Sandpiper (once common), the Tufted Duck, the 
Slavonian Grebe. 



48 SCHOOL, SALMON, POETRY 

I have always been fond of natural history sport 
rather than sport in the sense of formal shooting; — 
wandering about with a gun or a contemplative fishing- 
rod rather than attending cover -shoots. As a boy^ how- 
ever, I did some careful fishing of the Deveron in the 
spring-time with the March Brown, and later in the 
year, the Governor ; the Professor and the Coachman 
were names of my favourite flies. My most successful 
day with the trout was at Dunlugas in 1882 — 144 trout, 
weighing 54 lbs. The average size was small, especially 
as there was one among the 144 of 2f lb. weight. 
Had I made an earUer start the bag would have been 
fifty heavier in numbers at least. My best with salmon 
was one of thirty pounds in the Deveron at the bend 
in the Embankment Pool. On two other occasions I 
got four, the biggest about 25 lbs. The thirty- 
pounder also provided the most excitement of any 
salmon I have caught, though certain frogs in the south 
of France and the goldfish in old Mr. David Morgan's 
pond at Whipps Cross when I was a very small boy, 
were quite as exciting to land. The salmon in question 
took me close into the bank. I was using a medium 
Childers whose dull yellow has often with me proved 
the winning lure. The water was high and slightly dis- 
coloured, and I was trying a new make of cast known 
as the Hercules. Hercules was, fortunately, its nature 
as well as its name on this occasion, for the fish, after 
rushing up and down stream several times, went straight 
away to a deep creek far away on the other side of the 
pool, where, as I knew, there were some big sunken 
beech-tree branches. I held on with all my might 
trying to turn him, but he was still too strong (he 
had been on about half an hour) and got among them. 
Suddenly the tug-tugging at the line ceased and my 



MY BIG SALMON 49 

heart sank as I felt the dead weight of what piust 
be a branch. I turned to the keeper Gallon, and 
said with a sinking heart : "He's off, I think." 
But I still held on tight and the heavy salmon- 
rod was bent nearly double as an immense branch 
of beech-tree rose to the surface from the mud 
of the creek in which it had been imbedded. The 
small twigs must have covered many yards as they 
pricked the calm surface of the water, the thick arm 
round which my line was entangled remaining sub- 
merged. Suddenly, from the , very centre of this 
miniature floating forest, a magnificent salmon sprang 
up his full length of solid silver — sprang and dis- 
appeared. A moment after, I again felt the heavy 
tugging of the fish. What had happened was quite 
clear. He had made one twist of the line round the 
sunken beech-bough and his direct pulUng on it, plus 
mine, must have dragged it out of the mud. The line 
was prevented from breaking by the yielding of the 
bough as it was slowly raised. His triumphant leap 
the opposite way over the branch had been his undoing, 
for I managed to prevent his getting back into the 
creek and killed him half an hour afterwards. He 
weighed 29^ lbs. when we got him back to Delgaty, 
but I have always added half a pound, as fish are 
said to lose weight when they have been some hours 
out of the water. The reader, however, is quite 
welcome to the odd half pound if he will, but he must 
leave me the remaining 29^ ! 

I shall refer later to the fascinating sport of frog- 
fishing, but may just mention here my day with 
the goldfish at Whipps Cross. Old Mr. David 
Morgan was my grandfather's brother — a very kindly, 
dark, bright-eyed old gentleman, with his black skuU- 

4 



50 SCHOOL, SALMON, POETRY 

cap and velvet jacket . The day we went over to 
luncheon from Lancaster Gate he gave me some finei 
birds for my collection, a Pine Grosbeak, a Raven and a 
Waxwing, all of them on the British list, though these 
specimens are probably of Siberian origin. After 
luncheon I was given a line and a small toy fishing-rod 
and told I might go and fish for the goldfish with a 
crooked pin while my elders conversed. Although still 
quite a little boy I was already a minor brother of 
the angle, for I had caught a good many trout at 
Delgaty and knew how to set systematically about the 
matter. I was quite good and quiet for about an hour, 
while my elders strolled up and down, eventually 
approaching the pond. I shall always remember old 
Mr. Morgan's rather sceptical inquiry as to how many 
fish I had caught. " Please, I think I have caug^ht 
them all,'" came the reply in piping treble, and w[hat 
was the old gentleman's astonishment when he saw 
the whole contents of his fair-sized pond — about forty 
good-sized goldfish — neatly arranged in three rows on 
the bank, all of them stone dead. I had not been told 
to put them back, and my innocent inquiry as to whether 
I might have some for tea was that of the labourer 
worthy his hire, though it " put the Ud on it," as they 
say nowadays. 

I had the greatest fun one day in April when wading 
in the Dunlugas stretch, already mentioned, just below 
the pool known as the Mausoleum, for I spied 
a kelt salmon of about lo lbs. lying at the tail 
of some green weeds close to the rocks in the 
centre of the river. The sun was shining brightly, 
and I could not resist the temptation of wading to the 
bank, putting down the trout-rod, and returning to 
try and , catch the old chap by the tail. Neil 



RAGGING A SALMON 51 

McLaren, the faithful keeper, was drowsing on the 
bank. The stream ran quite smoothly at the tail of 
a rock over the mass of green weeds, decorated with' 
smaU white blossoms not quite as big as daisies. I 
could see every stone on the bottom and the fish's dark 
back and languid tail as I carefully crept up-stream to 
grapple with him. I was about up to my middle. With 
every precaution I approached my hands from' opposite 
sides to the part just above the junction of tail and 
body. Now's the moment I — and I gripped him fast. 
In one flash I was drenched to the skin, as the salmon,, 
terror-stricken, leapt about like a mad thing while I 
clung firmly to his tail. The struggle lasted about half a 
minute and then he was free, jumping his own height 
in the water over and over again, all over the deep 
pool just above, while I was rocking with laughter in 
the middle of the river, partly at my water -and- sunlight 
escapade and partly at Niel, who had been roused from 
his siesta by hearing the fish plunging about, and was 
now running up and down the pool shouting to me : 
" See at the running fish. Master Douglas, see at the 
running fish." That old kelt certainly played the part 
of a fresh-run fish to perfection — he entered into the 
spirit of the game, rather like Lady Horner's victims. 
This game, as she explained it to me and I practised 
it, only requires two players — you and your friend on 
your way anywhere by train. Everybody who enters 
the carriage joins ipso facto in the game just like (my 
salmon, without knowing it. The rules are simple. 
You must not address any remark directly to anybody 
but your fellow-player, but you may say anything to 
him (or her) which touches the fibre of generosity 
or that passion for aiding fellow-travellers which is 
shared, I believe, even by assassins on a tedious 



52 SCHOOL, SALMON, POETRY 

journey. Every time you indirectly elicit a remark from 
a fellow-traveller you score one. Thus, as the Great 
'Western non-stop to Plymouth train whizzes past 
Slough one remarks to one's friend : " Did you 
notice, my dear, in the A. B.C., when we were 
due at Oxford? " An elderly gentleman in the 
comer seat will almost certainly say :- "I fear, 
sir, we do not stop at Oxford at all : this train 
runs right through to Plymouth." That is one 
to A, but B would get even in a moment or two 
with : "I quite thought this was a smoking-carriage, 
but I see it isn't." " I've no objection to smoking " 
would certainly come from the same corner. Placing 
one hand in the pocket A will extract a cigarette, but 
of course, find no match. A youth opposite will 
tender one that he had just used to light up with him- 
self, with a pohte " May I offer you a light? " Two 
to B. You must always forget your matches — and also 
to buy the pap€r, for one of you certainly 
will extract the Times and the Lady's Pictorial 
from some kind-hearted privy councillor or criminal, 
especially if the fellow-player were a lady — one to her. 
Much can be gained rather unfairly by the fair 
sex by simply gazing at the window fixedly, whether 
open or shut. Someone masculine is almost certain 
to give her an easy point by pulling the strap up or 
down. There are all sorts of refinements to this game, 
as those will find who play it. Only you must of course 
keep your countenances, so that other players may 
leave you with tranquil minds in the belief that they 
have been " kind and helpful," and " playing the game," 
as they say — ^so different from your game ! 

The brief period spent at Woodcote House school 
enabled me to take a fairly good place at Eton — upper 



WOODCOTE HOUSE 53 

fourth form — and I am sorry to say that my brother 
Percy did not accompany me there, but was sent to 
Radley, where he was not, I believe, very happy. 

Woodcote House stands on high ground about five 
miles from Reading, and presents all the aspects of a 
country-house in its own grounds. Mrs. Ninde was 
a singularly handsome and attractive person, quite 
different from Mrs. Hawtrey in her lack of pomposity 
and in the interest she took in the boys. My brief 
sojourn at Woodcote was more like a visit, so pleasant 
did I find the boys and the masters. Mr. Ninde was 
small, dark and energetic, a handsome, determined man. 
Exceptions were made in my favour as it was rather 
a feather in the cap of Woodcote to have attracted 
a boy from Aldin House. Mr. Ninde gave me 
especial attention and I, could not have gone to a more 
satisfactory school. The food was better than at Aldin 
House, and at Woodcote we were allowed to have 
hampers from home, which greatly added to the popu- 
larity of those who, like myself, possessed affectionate 
and generous parents. I can still quite clearly see the 
comfortable dining-room, the lofty square of the main 
schoolroom, and the rows of beds in the dormitories — 
for we all slept in dormitories and not in cubicles as 
at Aldin House. I had one or two almost friendly 
scraps with the bigger boys, Buckhurst and Robinson, 
who at first rather resented an alien intrusion from 
above, as it were, into the fifth form. I also discovered', 
for the first time, the pleasures of patronage in the 
admiration inspired in a boy of loftier height than 
myself either at the appearance of an immense hamper 
from Delgaty, or at the prospect of my speedily going 
to Eton, or owing to a combination of these and other 
external qualities. He used to follow in my wake loudly 



54 SCHOOL, SALMON, POETRY 

applauding all I said, and I remember his suggesting 
that some sort of gift should be presented to me by 
the school on my departure ! 

Another little item may be added to the list of my 
indebtedness to Woodcote : it enabled me to read Tom 
Brown's Schooldays with far greater appreciation, for 
Aldin House and Eton were in an altogether different 
key. Woodcote was an improved edition of the older 
fashioned schools, less worldly and with a more intense 
local life. Every morsel of energy was taken up with 
living in the tense atmosphere of Woodcote. The 
school came first, second and third, whereas at Aldin 
House other interests chipped in, and Eton, though a 
world unto itself in one sense, was so closely linked 
and knitted up with the great world, that one stepped 
from the one into the other without experiencing much 
sense of change. ; i i : 1 



CHAPTER III 

ETON 

Arrival — From Lock's to Durnford's — P. J. de Paravicini — Eton " Swagger " 
— " Passing " in Swimming at Cuckoo Weir — Football " Colours " 
Won^— Do7x yuan Confiscated — Romps. 

Many volumes have been devoted to Eton life, and I 

shall dwell on none of the obvious things such las 

the .Eton and Harrow, 4th of June, etc. in these 

Adventures, for the place filled by those few years is 

necessarily not very large. But there can be no doubt 

that Eton has a cachet of its own in experience, and 

contrives to stand out in the perspective of memory 

like a cathedral over against a popular city. Not that 

there was much of the cloistered life in the Eton 

of my day in the early 'eighties. I made my debuty not 

at Walter Durnford's house, but at Lock's, where I 

spent my first half, somewhat awed by Mr. Lock's lofty 

forehead and reputation for mathematical acquirements. 

But Lock's meant merely bed and breakfast : work was 

done chiefly at my tutor's almost next door, that house 

of red brick facing the Old Schools. The next half 1 

was accorded a Very tiny room on the third floor .at 

Walter Durnford's and made acquaintance with the 

members of that very successful house. I was still 

somewhat awed by the portentous greatness of Morris, 

the captain of the house, in his " stick-ups " and white 

tie ; a solemn youth as ill see him now, with ihis six 

or seven fags to get his breakfast. Harry Cust, captain 

of the Oppidans, impressed me with great admiration 

55 



56 ETON 

in my early Eton days as he strode up the Chapiel 
aisle at the head of sixth form, a cherub with 
a touch of the Emperor Commodus. I was often 
to meet him in the far future as Editor of the 
Pall Mall, etc. But even his greatness under- 
went a momentary cloud when P. J. de Para^vicini, 
captain of the Eleven, medium height, dark haired, oval 
faced, reeled slowly (" awful swagger ") up the centre 
of the road in his light -blue cap and white cricketing, 
flannels (ordinary mortals wore grey ones), or in his 
perfect tall hat poised at the back of the head (this 
was only permitted, to the really great )^ in his brown -top 
boots (brown tops as above), his " lush " blue, " turned 
up " trousers (as above), his tail-coat bound with braid 
(braid as above), lofty stick-up collars (as above). He 
only died the other day and I am always glad that 
we never met in after life. He was imperial — ^far too 
great, while I was a small lower boy, even to know of 
my existence, but we might have met in after life : it 
would have been like playing billiards with the Pope to 
have played cricket with " P. J." In fact, I am sure 
the late Supreme Pontiff (a fair billiard player) could 
never inspire me with awe and admiration equal to 
that which I felt for " Para " as we small fry dared 
affectionately to call him. Probably even the Pope 
and the Grand Lama have their short names : indeed 
it must be so, when certainly " Para " had his. 

Of course there are twelve boys in the Eleven, plus 
one or two with' a foot in it — ^nine in the Eight — and so 
on illogically, but rarely does it happen that more than 
one or two individuals in a decade rise to the altitudes 
of a Paravicini. Perhaps it was his Italian blood that 
enabled him so perfectly to play the part of lord of all 
he surveyed. Perhaps the spirit that makes the smaU 



"PARA" AND PASSING 57 

boy so faithful an enthusiast for his own ideal burned 
particularly strongly in me, but 1 believe that the 
majority of those who were then at Eton will admit — 
that " Para " was a paragon. 

Eton, the most aristocratic of schools, had the most 
republican spirit — nothing that came from without to 
support a reputation had any effect in maintaining it 
there. People counted for just what they were worth 
in school values — the bookish element being at a dis- 
count. This was perhaps rather unfortunate for me in 
view of later developments, as I have had to do a great 
deal of work since leaving school, college and diplomacy, 
in order to catch up with the average educated person. 
We were gorgeously Homeric at Eton in my time. 
Achilles, Ulysses, Ajax, Agamemnon, each had his tent 
and was surrounded with his adherents. The mimic 
battles that we fought with Trojan Harrow had an 
artistic finish about them built up from boyish en- 
thusiasms and unequalled in after days. 

Cricket was never one of my games, though I was 
a good catch at point, so I became a " wet bob," 
and tried to pass in swimming that first summer 
half at Durnford's. Three masters used to sit in 
conclave, blue jacketed and brass buttoned, for all the 
world like genuine skippers, in a punt at Cuckoo Wier, 
where we small boys bathed. We had to jump in and 
swim about according to instructions, usually ending with 
the command : " Take your hair out of your eyes." 
This could not be conveniently done with both hands, 
as was expected, without " treading water," so that 
the boy who had not acquired that accomplishtnent 
usually sank to the bottom in the attempt, to the huge 
amusement of the crowded lawn. Warre, Sydney 
James, Marindin and my own tutor and house- 



58 ETON 

master, Walter Durnford, twice sat in judgment 
upon me before I " passed." At last I did so. Few 
boys, I believe, ever got through this swimming ordeal 
at the first attempt. I was now free of the river 
and might even attempt to go in an " outrigger," 
which at once overturns if you let go the sculls. 
This I immediately did, though my experience in 
rowing had hitherto been confined to paddling about 
the lake at Delgaty in one of a pair of enormous 
flat-bottomed fishing-boats that made the heaviest punt 
look like a dry beech leaf. How, at my first attempt, 
I managed to let go both sculls just below .Windsor 
Bridge, when the river was in flood, and catch them 
again without swamping is one of the problems that 
make me still wonder and echo that admirable adage : 
" De Vaudace^ de Vaudace et tou jours de Vaudace." 
Paralleled once only in latter experience by the feat of 
remaining in the saddle during a whole day's hunting 
on a Pytchley Crick Wednesday — a first attempt this 
too, at hunting, during which an old grey horse of poor 
Johnny Clayton's, with a mouth of iron and an 
exhaustive (and exhausting) knowledge of the country, 
had a capital day to hounds, and his rider certainly 
an exciting one. 

The Brocas and its boats, however, had less charms 
for me than the football field, where I was speedily 
at home at the Eton game. This game diff'ers from 
Rugby and Association by the disposition of the field, 
the mode of starting the game, and the scoring. We 
"formed down" for the "bully" in the middle of 
the field, six of the team on either side, post half posts 
with their " back-ups," the arms of the one side resting 
upon the necks of their opponents. The " corners " 
put the ball into the passage we thus formed between 



I GET MY "COLOURS" 59 

the feet of the posts, and the shoving and kicking began. 
I had quite a turn of speed in those days, and in spite 
of a regime of pine-apple and green chartreuse, always 
found I had " wind " enough to stay the hour's 
struggle. 'I played " corner " a good deal in " house " 
games and matches and got my " colours " a year 
before any of the boys of my time, except St, John 
Meyrick, who was killed in the Boer War. I shall 
always remember the surprise of seeing my door 
open, just after a match against Mitchell's, and Baillie's 
head appear : " Ainslie, you played very well to-day ; 
you may have your colours." This meant that I might 
wear the cap and shirt of grey and cerise with a 
thin black dividing line between the two, and at once 
raised me from the position of one of the not important 
smaller boys to the society of the great ! 

Baillie (now Lord Glenusk), who gave me my 
colours, was a beautiful football player with so nice a 
sense of balance, so quick a judgment and so accurate 
an eye that he forced a rouge (three rouges to a goal) 
by running the ball down the line in the final match of 
the House Football Cup, which we won (kicking it 
against one of the opposing Warre's side and touching 
it behind the line) and so saving what looked like a 
certain tie — ^nothing to nothing — after an hour's strenuous 
play. I was post on that occasion and it was no light 
post, so much so that my heart gave signs of revolt and. 
it was thought better that I should not play in the 
" fieldj," for which I had been " picked up." 

Of all the games I have played, Eton football has 
always seemed to me the best, and I wish that I had 
been able to continue it. I remember that Durnford 
used often to appear in the house game, in which 
We joined with Evans's and Ainger's ; but he was 



60 ETON 

apt to hover in the offiing and to play rather [with his 
tongue than his toes, padding about backward and 
forward like a red-wattled turkey-cock and clucking 
out encouragement or interperation, as the occasion 
suggested. 

He used also to do a sort of turkey-trot up and down- 
stairs of an evening in his house, just ,as we (were 
retiring to rest. I found this rather tiresome, as it 
was one of the few moments of the day when one 
could open a book to read, il recollect his once con- 
fiscating Byron's Don Juan, which I had brought from 
home and was reading when he suddenly pounced upon 
me. This was the only occasion I ever knew himl 
to take an interest in poetry. I had also a copy of 
Shelley's poems, which I thought it safer to present to 
the house library. There was some discussions as 
to whether it was suitable, and I remember the remark' 
being made that Ainslie would be the only one to 
read it. One boy, in a speech at another house 
(Marindin's), declared that all boys had liked Eton so 
far as he knew with the exception of "a boy ciaUed 
Shelley." So much for literature in the Eton of the 
'eighties, though there may have been houses less 
Philistine than Durnford's. 

We made up for it, however, with romps and 
escapades of all sorts in which, as a small boy, il was 
a ringleader. One fascinating game consisted in 
supplying one boy out of about ten or more with a 
squirt full of ink and water, and shutting the door of 
a small room in which the lights were extinguished. 
The game consisted in the boy with the squirt catching 
one of the others and squirting the liquid down his 
back under his collar. The victim then became, in 
his turn, pursuer. The effect upon the furniture 



ROMPS 61 

and fittings of the rooms selected for this game was 
remarkable. The table in the centre was smashed 
almost at once as it generally covered two or three 
boys, determined not to be squirted, who clung per- 
tinaciously to its legs. Crockery was swept off the 
mantelpiece and came crashing to the ground in 
picturesque fragments. Ink and water everywhere, as 
the jug and basin were generally broken pretty early in 
the day. The game becamje very popular in the house 
and we had to limit th^ number of participants. Also the 
authorities were not slow in detecting the extraordinary 
tendency of the furniture to deteriorate in certain rooms, 
but they did not discover the game while it was in 
full swing in my room or Bowater Vernon's, Clinton's, 
Meyrick's, Coventry's or Lascelles's, as we had look- 
outs posted down the passage and staircase, and at the 
slightest hint stopped the scrimmage, struck a light, and 
were deeply studious of Caesar's Gallic War (nothing 
to our scrimmage) or Herodotus, which we carried in 
our pockets. St. John Coventry had a most guileless 
face, with his mop of fair hair and blue eyes, and I 
remember his doing spokesman for us in a voice of 
injured innocence justly pained at Durnford's suspicions. 
■We sat round in a circle upon quaking chairs, calm and 
studious, having but a second before been struggling 
wildly in an inchoate mass. It was against the rules 
of the game to utter any loud sound which mi^ht lead 
to detection, so during the scrimmagte nothing was 
audible but gulps and grunts of discomfort and the 
creaking and cracking of furniture, save when there 
was a fall of crockery, which we had to risk. 

We played another variety of this game at evening 
prayers, read by Durnford at the end of the crimson- 
clothed dining-room table, along which ran two parallel 



02 ETON 

benches upon which we sat or rested our arms as we 
knelt. We used to catch hold of one another's hands 
under the table and then yo ! heave ho ! pull devil, 
pull baker — the heavy table creaked and groaned as it 
slowly rose up in the air, inch by grudging inch. Now 
and then there was an awful pause in -the reading, 
which was fortunately conducted in stentorian tones, 
and then the table would hastily return to the ground 
with a bump. The voice would again take up the 
reading and again the table would rise and again fall 
suddenly. This was a most exciting pursuit and we 
used to have regular matches with teams on either 
side of the table. The wonder was that nothing ever 
came of it, but so far as 1 remember no reproof was 
administered . 

Not content with playing " post " for the house in 
the " bully " at football during the afternoon, sub- 
merged with the ball beneath a surging mob of muddied 
athletes, like a hedgehog rolled up, in the evening, 
during the winter half, I used often to defy some ten 
or twelve stalwarts to enter my room, hurling insults 
and Grammars and Gradus ad Parnassum at their 
heads. A stampede would ensue: 1 would rush down 
the passage and throw myself upon the floor, back to 
the door and feet against boot -box, which in its turn was 
in contact with the " burry " (bureau), then the clothes- 
chest, then the wall. A strong line of defence I They 
used to " form up " in the room opposite and then come 
on, treading in time : one two, one two, then, bang 
against the door with the leader's shoulder. I was 
never forced out of my position, but the door developed 
a large crack in the centre. This assault and battering 
would be repeated two or three times, after which I 
used to execute my favourite manoeuvre of rising very 



ROMPS 63 

quietly from the floor and standing behind the door 
with a big jug of water. On they came, crashing 
down and falling over one another head foremost on 
the floor and passage, while I damped their ardour 
with a cold douche, then leapt on top of the struggling 
mass with shouts of triumph. Any article of furniture 
in the room as yet unbroken was, of course, smashed 
in pieces during these manceuvres. 



CHAPTER IV 
ETON AND OXFORD 

Escalading the Tower — A Tragedy of Good Health — Mousing — A Martinet 
— Balliol — The Master Examined — Enter Arthur Bourchier — Jowettand 
the Old Vic. 

But the most exciting times, as we grew bigger, were 
excursions to the Castle Hotel, Windsor, and return 
by escalade after lock-up. St. John Coventry, St. John 
Meyrick, Francis Pelham-Clinton and I were the first 
to discover a way out of Durnford's house by one of 
the windows, with a drop of only about five feet into the 
stone-flagged entrance-passage. The Castle, the .White 
Hart and indeed all hotels and several streets of 
Windsor were out of bounds, so we had to use great 
circumspection as to our goings-in and comings -out. 
There was a very sporting young billiard-marker who 
used to survey the street for us prior to our appear- 
ance in it, and I have often rushed back to cover when 
he dropped the signal handkerchief. Brandies and 
sodas, cigars and cigarettes made us men of the world 
for a brief period between schools. We used to play 
pool and billiards with the townfolk, and Coventry more 
than held his own. He was a natural player, and I 
remember on one occasion when the game was called 
Mr. Coventry twenty — Mr. Smith forty-eight — in a game 
of fifty — that Marshall, the marker, backed Coventry, 
who duly rolled up with his thirty break. 

[We should all have been expelled if we had been 

64 



ESCALADING AT ETON 65 

caught, and this knowledge added a fearful joy to our 
adventures in Windsor. Peril was by no means over 
at night when we left the Castle : we had to get into 
the house without arousing suspicions. 

I remember one night the three of us, Coventry, 
Meyrick and myself, arrived back from the Castle at 
about tea-time, in mid-winter. We had long before 
given elaborate instructions to young Guthrie, a lower 
boy who occupied the room with the window of 
entrance, that he was to open the moment he heard 
pebbles being thrown against it, under threats of 
vengeance dire if he failed to be prompt. On this 
occasion we threw up the pebbles and waited with 
confidence for the window to be opened, as we saw 
there was a light in the, room and had no doubt it was 
occupied. To our surprise it remained closed, so we 
renewed the rain of pebbles. At length it was very 
slowly raised an inch or two, and Meyrick, a strapping 
lad six feet tall, clambered up first from the ledge 
upon which we three were poised, and with a vigorous 
push thrust it wide open and plunged out of the black 
night into the centre of the room, followed by Coventry 
and myself, with imprecations on the head of young 
Guthrie, who had thus delayed our return and made 
us run great risk of detection. " What the devil do 
you mean by not opening the window at once? " came 
as in one breath from three stalwarts in tall hats and 
white ties, blinking in the bright Hght of two lamps, 
and looking everywhere for the diminutive culprit. At 
last a very faint, small voice came from behind ja: 
screen : "I'm very sorry ; my brother is getting tea 
and I thought you were burglars ; " and we saw the 
prettiest of pretty little girls, like Dulcie in Vice Versa, 
crouching down in terror fast melting* into admiration 

5 



66 ETON AND OXFORD 

for our audacity. Of course we apologized humbly, and 
Coventry, one of whose fags Guthrie was, let him off 
fagging for the rest of the half. Dulcie was delighted 
with the adventure, and her brother, who was a regular 
sport, joined our card club in the High Street when 
he got into Fifth Form. This club was quite unique 
of its sort and was founded by myself, Ednam, Royston, 
R. T. ElHson, F. Pelham -Clinton and a few others who 
were mostly not members of Durnford's. Here we 
elderly gentlemen of seventeen could enjoy our rubbers 
in peace and quiet, a cigar and brandy-and-soda at our 
sides, and the bright, coloured pasteboards, with their 
bold bad kings of hearts and clubs to symbolize our 
enterprise. It was indeed a perilously situated resort 
this little club, consisting of a couple of back rooms 
over a fruiterer's on the left, past Barnes Pool Bridge. 
Masters were, of course, constantly passing to and fro, 
and stories of our exploits got about in the school ; 
for this secret was not so well kept as that of the 
Castle billiards, since our members were recruited from 
other houses besides Durnford's. I remember how we 
used to enjoy ourselves, and how we used to laugh at 
one of our members who insisted upon bringing in 
a rope ladder to be used by the members of the club 
in case the house were attacked from the front. 
Nothing, however, transpired in my time so far as the 
beaks were concerned, though a fellow member of the 
club told me only the other day, when we were talking 
over old times, that when he was leaving Eton he had 
been told by his house-master that he knew about the 
club, but had thought better to say nothing. Tell that 
to the Marines, or if the house -master did know, then 
it was his duty to inform the authorities. 

This mention of the rope-ladder reminds me of an 



LYON AT THE TOWER OF LONDON 67 

adventure that occurred to a good friend of mine at a 
much later date — Lyon of the Grenadier Guards. He 
had made a biggish bet with some brother officers 
that he would climb into the Tower of London 
between i a.m. and 3 a.m. in the morninlg, when, 
of course, every entrance was bolted and barred.. 
He was off duty on the night in question and con- 
sequently had no business there at all. Of course it 
was understood that neither side was to do anything 
to disturb the ordinary course of events. Lyon 
presented himself in due course, about 2 a.m., at the 
especial point of the pile which he had studied 
with a view to escalade and began his careful, but 
perilous ascent. After about half an hour's efforts he 
had raised himself with bleeding finger-tips to just 
below the level of the first parapet. He heard the heavy 
tramp tramp of the sentry as he stalked to and fro. 
Waiting until the steps seem'eid to be at the remotest 
point from his position, he pulled himself up' the 
remaining couple of feet and was just scrambling over 
when he saw a bayonet about an inch from his nose, 
and a stentorian voice shouted : " 'Alt ! Who goes 
there? " Lyon, utterly reckless with exhaustion, but 
determined to win his bet, was then heard to ejaculate : 

" Don't be a d d fool my good fellow, but puU me 

up and I'll give you a fiver." 

Poor Lyon ! He was a real sport and had and gave 
his friends a splendid time, while the Guards enjoyed 
many little privileges of which I am told they havie 
since been deprived. He was a regular sybarite and 
used frequently to appear on parade after a " white " 
night, as indeed did also my oldest; and best Eton friend. 
Captain St. John Coventry, who was in the same 
battalion. Lyon was really wonderful considering the 



68 ETON AND OXFORD 

frail health which he "enjoyed." He inherited, I 
beUeve, a capital of about £150,000, and I remember 
Coventry's telling me that Lyon's doctor had informed 
him about the same time that a couple of years ;was 
all he could expect of Hfe. His lungs and his heart 
were in a deplorable condition according to this 
!/fLsculap. Lyon took the doctor at his word, and decided 
at least to have a good time. He decided that 
he and his capital should live and die together, 
and consequently started expenditure at the rate 
of £75,000 a year. The first year passed pleasantly 
enough between Ascot, Epsom, Newmarket, Paris, 
Monte Carlo (he had left the regiment). He had 
got through some months of the next year and 
rather over £100,000 of capital when he found 
himself menaced with signs of good health. He did 
his best with bouquets and stage-doors and suppers and 
all-night sittings at cards, but all was of no avail. His 
health continued steadily to improve in the most disquiet- 
ing manner and I remember lunching with him at the old 
Bristol while he detailed his symptoms. What was to: 
be done? His spare, ascetic form shook with emotion as 
he poured the foaming Pommery, with an all too steady 
hand, into my tumbler. I suggestedi a Visit to the home 
circle — could nothing be done by the wrath of a pere 
noble to undermine the nervous system? A course of 
well-conducted diimer-parties, with country neighbours, 
stiffened with bazaars and a little pew-work with the 
collecting plate? A lenient smile, a pleasant twinkle of 
the eye — it was the pere noble's capital that he had 
inherited. He had no living relations, no country 
place and therefore no country neighbours. We finished 
luncheon, I remember, in the deHghtful society of Kate 
Vaughan, who, like the writer, had a standing inyitation 
to drop in to a champagne lunch. ; 



LYON'S LAST DAYS 69 

'I lost sight of him for some years until we chanced 
upon one another at Monte Carlo, where! I was on my 
way to Italy. There he was : the Lyon of the present, 
just as frail as the Lyon of the past, but (apparently 
endowed with perpetual youth, for he had not visibly 
changed in any respect, but looked just as wistful, just 
as ascetic as any other hard-working vivear. 1 asked 
him to dine that night at the Paris and he came. ,He 
told me the sad story of his robust health : at 
the end of the second year the £150,000 capital had 
duly died of consumption — not so its former owner — -^ 
on the contrary he was left with an excellent appetite 
and ultra expensive tastes, without the means to 
gratify either. I sympathized discreetly and then came 
a little bit of comedy, half pathetic, half humorous, 
which often accompanied the doings of Lyon. He put 
his hand in the pocket of his dinner-jacket and from a; 
hermitically sealed glass tube produced a cigar : " It's 
all I have now to offer : it's a very good cigar I believe 
— smoke it on your way to Italy — and put not thy 
trust in doctors." He waved his hand as he strolled 
away in the starry perfumed dusk of Monte Carlo. 
Some months later I read of his death in the papers. 
Harley Street had been out in its calculation about 
ten years. 

Eton, with all its faults, is a most wonderful 
institution, and if the royal dictum : " Institutions 
corrupt men," be true, then all I can say is 
that institutions such as Eton are excellent for boys. 
Having said so much, let us proceed to find the sun- 
spots. These adventures purposely avoid wordy dis- 
cussions of all sorts and I am not going to be led 
into a pamphlet on our upper-class educational system. 
I merely state facts. In iny day, we were certainly 



70 ETON AND OXFORD 

worse taught than the boys at the middle-class schools, 
and compared with continental education, the system 
was absurdly inadequate. I much doubt if it be 
possible to teach forty noisy boys in one class. Some 
of our masters inspired awe and kept physical but 
not mental order, while many were only imper- 
fectly in control of the back benches, and some 
altogether lacked prestige and failed entirely. One 
master in particular, who taught French, was so 
obviously incapable of maintaining discipline that his 
division was reduced from forty to ten, but even 
these ten gave him more than enough to do. " If 
any of you young- devils had a spark of generosity about 
you, you would desist from chattering when I am trying 
to explain this difficult passage to the two or three of 
you who are not incorrigibly idle." (Cries of " saps ! " 
"scugs!",) Thus Mr. Evergreen (I alter names 
here) ; but the logic of his appeal to the finer feelin(g;S 
of those he condemned as young devils was not 
apparent to us and the din continued. Another master 
whom I always pitied, while expiring with laughter at 
his adventures in education, was a fine scholar and 
editor of several Latin poets. He was very tender- 
hearted towards animals, and lalso extremely short- 
sighted. A thorough gentleman in his gold-rimmed 
spectacles, I can see him now peering into his Horace 
as he proceeded to give us a super-excellent version of 
one of the Odes. Meanwhile, however, strange events 
were taking place in that spacious summer school- 
room, with its door wide open to admit the breeze of 
June, and forty imps of fifteen upon its benches. From 
several pockets would appear small boxes containing 
white mice, and these would be allowed by their owners 
to run along the floor and desks. Suddenly a hand 



ETONIAN ALARUMS 71 

would be raised. " Please sir, I see a mouse. Shall 
i kill it sir? " " No, don't touch the poor little beast, 
I'll come and catch it." So old Socrates would rush 
out of his rostrum and begin his search for the mouse 
under the benches. iNeedless to say, he never even 
caught sight of it, but all over the class sprang up 
boys with : " Please sir, I see another mouse," and 
then there would be violent bangs on the floor as thoug'h 
the new mouse were being stamped upon. This would 
exasperate Socrates beyond measure and he would rise 
up to denounce the culprit, whom, of course, he could 
not detect any more than he could the mice. Books 
would then be buzzed about — not at the mice — and a 
perfect pandemonium ensue. Socrates would become 
crimson with rage, and I remember a wonderful climax 
attained by the introduction of a large collie dog as 
he was scribbling yellow tickets to ensure " swishing " 
for the ring-leaders — or those he believed to be the 
ring-leaders. The dog, hearing him' shouting, began to 
bark. At first he could not see it, but when he did, 
he threw down his red chalk pencil and rushed to the 
bench near the door where two boys were holding it 
by the collar. He seized the boys and the dog in one 
wild embrace and fell himself, on the floor, as 
I very nearly did at the same time — ^for laughter. 

Other masters when thus " ragged " were more 
vicious, and I remember on one occasion at early 
school (mathematics), when I was quietly discussing 
with my old friend. Sir Robert Gresley, the respective 
merits of a pair of postage stamps which we had 
brought with us to help whUe along the time, the heavy 
iron door -key whizzed between his head and mine, and 
went smash against the wall just behind us, where it 
dislodged a large piece of plaster. We looked upon 



72 ETON AND OXFORD 

it as rather a good joke, but an inch or two to right 
or left would have very likely resulted in manslaughter. 

To resume. Considering that while at Eton about 
£400 a year was paid for my education, ^nd I ^suppose 
for most of the others, we should have had far smaller 
classes, and no masters should have been appointed 
who were unable to keep order. Nowadays, 1 believe, 
the educational authorities are everywhere alive to the 
complex of qualities and attainments necessary to make 
a good teacher. My experience was that no master 
ever taught me anything that I could not have learned 
myself. I never had any expert guidance at home 
or elsewhere. Consequently my private schools, as well 
as the University, were in the nature of a revel, with 
brief interludes of application for the purpose of passing 
examinations. Had I come under the influence of a 
powerful personality, instead of that of a martinet with 
the mind of a drill-sergeant, the results would have 
been widely different. I was naturally of a studious 
disposition. 

Some will say that it is a boy's own fault 
if he fails to develop his powers at school. But the 
ethics of a school like Eton are far too strong for a 
boy, unless he is supported by his teachers. There 
ought to have been a tutor for every five or six boysy 
and this would have been easily met out of the amounts 
paid by our parents. The masters, however, would 
not have been able to retire on £:3^ooo a year, which 
was often the case in my time with those who had 
houses. Each boy should have the close attention of 
an expert mind concentrated upon his mental and moral 
development at this critical period. It would be far less 
fun for the boy of course, but in the end a great boon, 
both to the individual and to Society. Of course a 



WHAT HAVE THE POOR GIRLS DONE? 73 

good many youngsters have not much in them for good 
or ill, but this would enable more attention to be 
paid to those who had something worth developing. 
Certainly I am all against mollycoddling or any inter- 
ference with the free intercourse of personality between 
boy and boy. This reminds me of what occurred 
recently at a meeting in London, held to air the views 
of a living, and every successful young novelist,, who 
has attacked the public-school system. The meeting 
was largely attended by teachers of both sexes, and 
the novelist had just been saying that for boys pi 
delicate fibre like himself, it would be preferable that 
there should be mixed education, boys and girls attend- 
ing the same classes. As he sat down, a young school- 
mistress rose and asked if she might put a question. 
Permission being given, she simply said : " What 
have the poor girls done to deserve such a fate? " 
Shouts of applause I ' ; ' ' 

My notion of a tutor is one whom boys could 
consult and ask for friendly advice. I used to 
object very strongly to my door being flung wide 
open at any hour of the day or night to reveal the 
red face of our little turkey-cock inquisitorially glaring. 
I see that Lord Frederick Hamilton, in his book of 
reminiscenses, says that his privacy was never invaded 
in that day. Perhaps he did not read Byron at sixteen, 
but from what he says I think he would agree that 
even schoolboys are entitled to a little privacy, even 
if they do read Byron and smash furniture. 

On arriving at Oxford for matriculation at Balliol), 
I had little notion of the relative positions of the 
Oxford Colleges, and thought that one had merely to 
qualify in a few rudimentary subjects before being taken 
into the arms of Balliol. My father having been a 



74 ETON AND OXFORD 

Balliol man and also his brother^ Sir Mountstuart Gratit- 
Duff, and my first cousin Arthur having recently also 
been a member of the College, I had some claim to 
the attention of Jowett, who certainly received me kindly, 
entertaining me at breakfast and luncheon. Then he 
chirruped out a few inquiries as to my family and 
then relapsed into silence without giving me any infor- 
mation as to the ways of Balliol. I passed the 
matriculation examination and was told, to my surprise, 
that I could join the College as soon as I had passed 
Responsions. Unfortunately I selected Algebra instead 
of Euclid as one of my subjects, and Was ploughed in 
that paper, though one of the examiners went out of 
his way to extol my renderings of the first three books 
of the Odes of Horace. I should; have better appreciated 
his squaring his mathematical colleague. I joined the 
Unattached and took lovely rooms just facing the church, 
side by side with Balliol. Here I began to entertain 
a number of old Etonian firiends, and soon met with 
other interesting people, such as Ion Thynne, Edgar 
Jepson and Victor Plarr, to whose notebook, which he 
has very kindly put at my disposal, I am' indebted for 
some of .Wilde's sayings and other matters in this 
chapter. 

At the end of the next term I again failed to qualify 
in Algebra, though again complimented upon my Latin. 
I began to take an ijaterest in Euclid, and finally 
qualified in all the subjects. Responsions was like 
one of those games in which you have to do a number 
of different things successfully — failure in one of them 
entailing failure in all. I invariably dropped the egg 
in the soup ladle, after having jumped the hurdles, 
said the Lord's Prayer backwards, stood on my head, 
made a break of thirty at billiards and sworn an 



FIRST IN GREATS! 75 

affidavit. The wiseacres who invented Responsions 
should have substituted this list of subjects which, at 
any rate, would ensure a steady eye, hand and head. 

Having the blue paper slip containing the certificate, 
I imagined that now, at any rate, I was entitled to enter 
Balliol without more ado. But so it was not to be, 
and thereupon ensued a scene which must have been 
rare in the experience of the " Master." Thus we fell 
out. I had made the acquaintance of the philosopher 
and coach, St. George Stock, a delightful man, who 
suggested my taking Euclid instead of Algebra for 
Responsions. I asked him whether he thought I should 
get a First in Greats on three years' reading instead of 
four, as I did not propose to stay at the University 
the full four years. Stock, like a wise man, replied 
that he would not guarantee it, as he thought that my 
Greek scholarship might not (he did not say would not) 
come up to the standard of a First in so short a time, 
although in other respects it was quite possible that I 
should be successful. This Was enough for a head- 
strong boy : it must be a guaranteed First in Greats 
or a mere Pass ! One laughs as one thinks of the 
folly of it to-day. But Jowett was also very much to 
blame on that distinctly warm' summer morning when 
we exchanged views on education. He sat in his chair 
like a long-eared owl disturbed, chirping out at intervals : 
" You must take one of the Honour Schools if you 
come to Balliol." I explained that I was not sure 
of getting a first (as though it mattered whether I got 
a first or a fiftieth, provided I had the education). 
" You must take an Honour School," came back the 
unvarying reply. Jowett had then only " to talk to 
me like a father," and convince me that it would make 
but little difference to anyone what class I got. I 



76 ETON AND OXFORD 

continued to claim thei right of taking a Pass while 
he went on like an automaton with his reply, until we 
were interrupted with a tap at the door, and the appear- 
ance of Mr. Forbes, the Master's factotum, with a 
bundle of papers. I bowed and said that I would 
not come if I had to take Honours. I had refused 
Balliol, so now we were quits. 

But the whole business of matriculation for Balliol 
in those days was a farce. My good friend Victor 
Plarr thus describes his own adventures on arriving 
at about the same period on p. quest similar to mine. 
At the viva, Plarr sat next to a young workman withj 
hobnail boots : " It was a wonder he dared to assume 
this easy attitude (he sat with one leg folded over the 
other). . . . He would have made an excellent plumber 
and gas-fitter. . . . Without any sort of preliminary, 
Jowett came out in high piping treble with the truly 
absurd question — ' What is the date of David? ' This 
floored our industrial friend. He suggested ' 500 B.C.' 
As if the date of David mattered a pin, as if Jowett, 
an avowed sceptic, cared a pin for David or his 
epoch. . . . In a bird-like way the Master turned to 
me, and I said meekly ' 1000 B.C.? ' which, I believe, 
is near the orthodox mark, though probably it is far 
from the correct date. Jowett said no more, and sent 
us off. Result of matriculation : Earl Russell and the 
Hobnail were admitted among others, because they 
represented interesting social extremas."" 

Balliol, as represented by Jowett, wished to " keep 
up a reputation for advanced views, and hence found 
promise not only in earls educated as agnostics, but 
in hobnails." 

Another friend of mine Was thus addressed in a 
cheery way by one of the Balliol authorities (still living), 



"GIVE ME A PEN" 77 

who himself had taken a Second in Modern History : 
"The fact is, we don't want second-rate men here." 
My friend answered this masterful jab on the jaw* with 
one on the chin : '-• Then how the devil are you here, 

Mr. ? " 

Although I Was not a member of Balliol, I had so 
many friends there that I was constantly in the College, 
and heard most of what was going on. Jokes were 
many about the Scottish Professor, Forbes, who is com- 
monly reputed to have translated the Plato, while 
Jowett's contribution was that of signing his name with 
minusculous neatness. The Master was certainly able 
to do that, as witnessed by the anecdote of the Thirty- 
nine Articles, which it was reported that he would 
refuse to sign. " Give- me a pen," was his sole reply. 
The mystery and legend as to the Master has equal 
value with that famous Papal Bull, which French and 
Latin scholars will at once be able to place by its 
initial phrase : Digitus in Oculum. Forbes was a kindly 
soul, and the College rhyme : 

Here am I : my name is Forbes 
But now the Master me absorbs ; 

only too correctly describes the poor fellow's fate. He 
iwas shockingly overworked as tutor an|d examiner and 
the Master's factotum. 

But the Master did' not have it all his own way 
always, though very nearly always he did. My unique 
and exquisite friend, the Rev. F. Bussell, then a scholar 
of Magdalen College, provided an exception. He was 
on one occasion invited to take a walk by the Master. 
This was a mighty honour, which made the bravest 
both abound in vanity and tremble lest they should be 
nonplussed, browbeaten, and altogether squashed by 



78 ETON AND OXFORD 

the epigrammatic and reply-forbiddingt snubs of Balliol's 
Master and the University's Vice -Chancellor. Bussell 
was stout of heart, but not only that, he invariably wore 
a gardenia in his button-hole, a white satin stock with a 
diamond horse-shoe pin and an eye-glass kept in place 
solely by prehensile contraction of the ocular muscles. 
They sallied forth along the drear expianse of the 
Banbury Road, Bussell striding forward like Ajax about 
to visit Achilles, Jowett pattering along at his side, a 
diminutive Calchas. As a rule, undergraduates invited 
to join in this portentous perambulation awaited an 
indication from the Master as to the course that he 
desired the conversation to take. Not so Bussell, 
an expert Hellenist, who afterwards took Firsts in 
Mods, and also in Greats. He was determined 
that the conversation should run on lines familiar to 
himself, and as he was at that time making an exhaustive 
study of Byzantine Greek writers, he began by asking the 
Master if he were acquainted with the works of (say) 
Palseologos Porphyrogeneitos. Upon the Master chirp- 
ing out a negative, Bussell lightly ran over a list of 
some twenty historians, grammarians and rhetoricians 
of the Byzantine period, concluding each name with an 
inquiry as to whether the Master wer'e acquainted with 
the work in question. " No, no, no, no," chirped Jowett 
in reply, redoubling his efforts to keep pace with his 
youthful companion. Suddenly, at the conclusion of 
the list, Bussell stopped, the Master rather astonished 
(but also rather pleased, owing to the pace), also stopped 
(in the middle of a fair-sized puddle), and heard Bussell 
enunciate the following appalling words : " Well, what 
have you read. Master? " History is entirely silent as 
to what occurred after this stupendous audacity. An 
old professor of Croce's used to say to his class when 



ENTER ARTHUR BOURCHIER 79 

they came to a certain date in the sixth century, A.D., 
" Here the curtain comes down on ancient history and 
immediately rises upon mediasval." So perhaps it was 
with Jowett and Bussell — ^the curtain came down with 
a run upon Bussell the undergraduate, to rise again at 
once upon Bussell, the expert Hellenist, whom Jowett 
would be careful to cherish on the chance of his be- 
coming distinguished in after life. 

The above little anecdote shows Jowett with the "laugh 
against him, but, of course, he had the " qualities of 
his defects," as I heard' a member of an ultra-fashion- 
able club remark the other day, turning topsy-turvy 
a commonplace of the moralists w'ithout having the least 
notion that he was doing so. Jowett had undoubtedly 
a breadth of mind wlanting in many pedagogues. 
Evidence for this is certainly to be found in the per- 
mission to act at Oxford, wrung frotn' him' by my old 
friend, Arthur Bourchier. I have thought it amusing 
to obtain the eminent actor's account of the proceeding 
from his owti iips, and readers of the following brief 
narrative will please understand' that the pen has been 
handed over to the present ilessee of the 'Strand Theatre, 
who will tell them what occurred on the historical 
occasion, preluded with the alarums and excursions in 
which he joyed at that time. 

So enter Arthur Bourchier disguised as a man of 
letters. i 

HOW I FOUNDED THE O.U.D,.S. 

My dear Douglas, 

iHow many of us are there to whom the Old Vic. 
at Oxford (and let me underline " Oxford "), is not 
a painful memory. The extraordinary regulation that 
permitted such a fire-inviting, ramshackle, appalling 



80 ETON AND OXFORD 

building to be kept open for, at any rate, the com- 
mencement of each term, was on a par with the recent 
astonishing ban on the Grand Guignol plays imposed 
by the present Vice- Chancellor. But there it was. It 
was invariably the scene of disorderly riots on the part 
of undergraduates, and on the historic occasion of which 
I speak, I was myself one of the culprits. A party 
of us from Christchurch, who had come from a particu- 
larly merry dinner, more than filled the stage box. 
The play presented was a somewhat weird domestic 
drama, entitled My Jack, and apparently it was being 
depicted by the " Z " Company of the undertaking. At 
the beginning of the play the hero, *' Jack," came on 
to the stage in a pair of trousers calculated to make 
any undergraduate hilarious, but which were too utterly 
provocative for our box-load to stomach. Cries of 
" Take off those trousers," with a sort of dirge, which 
spread to the whole house, of " Trousers' ! Trousers ! 
Trousers ! " began, and was chanted loudly through 
the first act to the evident discomfort of the unfortunate 
players. Towards the close of the act the hero managed 
to make himself audible vvdth the remark, " Father, I 
go to India." A volley of cheers from our box and 
the rest of the audience, greeted this remark, and in the 
very short silence that remained a stentorian voice cried, 
" And if you come back in those trousers we will take 
them off." During the next act the hero did! not appear. 
In the various intervals between the scenes the bars 
were visited with equal frequence, and when the third 
act curtain rose on the uplifting picture of the old 
village home, with some beautifully stuffed doves peeping 
out from a very rickety dove-cot, and the heroine 
murmured, " Father, here comes the village," our spirits 
rose high. " The village " came on — three scene -shifters 



INTERVIEWS THE VICE-CHANCELLOR 81 

and the call-boy ! The Band struck up^ and everyone 
shouted — " Here he is i here he is ! Jack back home 
safle at last." Could we believe our eyes? — and in those 
same trousers ! It Was too much ! The mutiny broke 
out. On to the stage dashed the ringleaders from the 
Box ; round the dove-cot, out through the stage door, 
rushed the terrified hero — eagerly pursued. A most 
disgraceful scene took place in Commarket Street, with 
the result that the trousers wfere borne back in triumph' 
to the theatre, which was then in an uproar. A 
stampede and a free fight ensued, and, with great 
difficulty, the police cleared the building. Next morn- 
ing the ringleaders were, very rightly, " hauled up " 
before the then Vice-Chancellor — Professor Jowett of 
Balliol. I was elected spokesman, and in a speech 
full of fierce invective, I hurled defiance at his benign 
head, saying that if the authorities had no sense of 
justice, they might at least have one of humour, and 
as a protest against the foolish prohibition of legitimate 
drama in Oxford, and the allowance of such an abortive 
building as the Old Vic. in its place, the only thing 
we could do was to give vent toi our feelings in the 
manner which we had done. To the astonishment of 
all, the great little man looked me full in the face 
and said, " The others may go. You stay." The result 
of that interview was that he turned a most attentive 
ear to all my arguments in favour of establishing the 
Drama as part — not only of Oxford education, but 
recreation. My arguments as to the ilate nights involving 
much drinking and heavy losses at cards, as against 
the less expensive and more salutary occupation of 
rehearsing, thoroughly appealed to him, the result being 
that he finished by saying — " I will allow you to play 
Shakespearean plays or Greek plays, provided you can 

6 



82 ETON AND OXFORD 

get ladies to appear in the ladies' characters ; and 
also, if you can get funds for a proper theatre to be 
built, I will license it, and will come there at the 
opening performance." This was indeed a triumph', 
and a year or so later the New Theatre at Oxford was 
opened by the Oxford University Dramatic Society with 
a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and 
as both the theatre and the O.U.D.S. are now part 
of the Varsity curriculum, the episode of the Old Vic. 
once more proves that out of evil good often comes. 
March 20, 1922. 

PS.— All this is, of course, ancient history to you, 
my dear Douglas. Were we not in those historic 
rooms of ours in King Edward's Street, not far from! 
the above scene of carnage : didi we not sit up till the 
small hours over our pipes and plain sodia, while you 
chid me for my rashness, and, like conspirators, we 
gradually germinated the scheme of taking the high 
hand with the authorities, and playing for neck or 
nothing? So really, my dear Douglas, you were, perhaps, 
the most important accessory. As I write all this, the 
photo of that charming bust of dear old Jowett looks 
cunningly down on me. 



CHAPTER V 

SWINBURNE, WILDE, AND PATER 

Oxford Days — Bristol Restaurant — First in London — Luncheon Festivities — 
Bullingdon Dinners — The Ishmaelites Society — J. P. Nichol and Swin- 
burne — Maturity at Seventeen — With Swinburne at Louise Molesworth's 
— Either or Ether— Oxford Days — '' Full of the Warm South " — Oscar 
Wilde Trounced by H. J. Maynard — Anecdotes of Wilde — Injustice of 
Whistler — Wilde as Conversationalist — Walter Pater — First Meeting — 
Wilde on Walt Whitman — Lionel Johnson as Roman Catholic — The 
Escalade — Oxford Alpine Club— Wilde's Sentence Unjust — After Im- 
prisonment — His Feat in Paris — A Lost Masterpiece. 

Thank you, my dear friend, for your contribution, 
I again take that oar in hand which one of the 
troubadours declared to be heavier than the oar of the 
galleys. I shall proceed to paddle gently along and 
down the stream of Oxford' life in those days in the 
company of that gentlest of people, Charles Leveson- 
Gower, who told me of what must have been the most 
exciting event of his life, when he went to see his tutor, 
Forbes, with an essay f!or his inspection. " Come in,'' 
replied Forbes, cheerfully, to his modest tap. Leveson- 
Gower entered at the sound of this encouraging voice, 
and as he did so, an entire bottle of superfine scarlet 
ink whizzed past his head, to smash in rosy pattern 
on the wall. " Luminous " Leveson, as we used to call 
him from his smooth hair and invariably ultra-shining^ 
bright appearance, immaculate at all points, hastily 
withdrew. Other Balliol men who used often to come 
round to revel at the rooms in the Commarket, whither 
I now had migrated and shared with one of my best 
friends, Albert Osborne, who had got tired of living 

83 



84 SWINBURNE, WILDE, AND PATER 

in College, were Edward A. Mitchell Innes, now a K.C ; 
Victor Morier, son of the Ambassador, Sir Robert ; 
Billy Tyrell, now Permanent (or is it Eternal?) 
Secretary at the F.O. ; Hubert Beaumont, son of my 
friend the great financier and man-of-the-world, the 
late Lord Allendale, and A. H. E. Grahame. Albert 
Osborne was very pale and fair, with smooth hair. I 
hardly knew him when he was at Mitchell's at Eton, 
as he was slightly older, but at Oxford we shared not 
only rooms, but at that period, ideas. He was a most 
delightful companion on any adventure, and invariably 
maintained that extraordinary calm which will, I think, 
go out of the world with my generation as, indeed, it 
must admit all this democratic push and hustle. I 
remember when Oscar Wilde appeared to review a 
performance of the O.U.D.S., to which we both belonged 
as original members, he was asked to give his impres- 
sions of Osborne. I always think he hit him off to a 
T. : " ' I will turn you to stone,' said Pallas Athene, 
if you harken not to the words of my wisdom. ' Ah, 
but I am marble already/ said Osborne — little Osborne, 
and passed on." 

It was the useless but decorative society of such 
people as Osborne and Cuthbert Clifton, whom Osborne 
introduced to me at the Bristoil, in Cork Street — the 
first restaurant in London run on modern lines — that 
kept me out of the Union Debating Society, where I 
might have enjoyed the flower of rhetoric from' isuch lips 
as those of the present Archbishop of York and Lord' 
Robert Cecil — the latter I only met occasionally at the 
Gridiron Club, of which we were fellow-members. 

Luncheon was the chief feast in those days, 
and we certainly did ourselves Well : oysters and 
champagne were the order of the day, both at Coillege 



BULLINGDON 85 

feasts and at lodgings. I remember some young 
Sybarites actually mingling Vintage Lafitte claret with 
Pommery and Greno champagne. On one occasion, 
at my new rooms over Wheeler's in the High, about 
ten of us rushed out and found the fire-escape, which, 
I believe, was put rather out of commission owing to 
the antics which we performed with that machine. We 
were very rightly fined ten pounds apiece for this 
dangerous frolic. Bullingdon dinners were great func- 
tions, and I remember frequently proceeding to them 
with Osborne and Morier in a hansom — rather a 
tight fit, as Morier was almost a giant. Business 
began early, and with the disappearance of the fish, 
a large number of roysterers were in eighteenth-century 
high spirits. Bread used' to fly about sometimes in 
heavy chunks. I remember one of these hitting a 
rather hot-headed youth of my acquaintance, now partner 
in a historical banking firm, plumb on the side of the 
head. He immediately seized a lump of crust and 
threw it in the direction of the aggressor as hard as 
he could. It struck an empty tumbler, shivering it 
to atoms. The whole cheek of one of the Cravens 
sitting near me was instantaneously covered with blood 
from the spHnters of the glass. But the revel went on just 
the same, minus the victim, who retired ftom the scenes. 

In 1885, we some of us founded a literary society, 
called the Ishmaelites, where we read papers on literary 
subjects. Ion Thynne read one on Swinburne, I treated 
of Edgar Allan Poe, etc. The Ishmaelites would have 
liked to have been far more alarming than they really 
were. 

My greatest Oxford friend, on the literary side, 
was J. P. Nichol, whom I met in 1886, during my 
last year. He was a Balliol mlan, " Snell exhibitioner*" 



86 SWINBURNE, WILDE, AND PATER 

whatever that may be, btit far more important, a real 
poet in outlook and temperament. He wlas a member 
of another hterary society, the Dolores, where they 
declaimed Swinburne's magical lines. Thynne used to 
wail rather than sing the lines, but wias in high repute 
as a Swinburnian reciter. I greatly preferred Nichol's 
mode, which was far more melodious, and based upon 
direct jexperience, as his father, the Scottish Professor, 
had been a great friend of the poet, who used to stay 
with the family. 

I possess a copy of a pioem' by Rossetti, entitled 
Shameful Death, copied entirely in the childish hand- 
writing of Swinburne. It formed part of a bundle 
of unprintable but exceedingly amusing letters that 
Swinburne had written to the Professor", chiefly on 
literary subjects.; He was at the time engaged in 
a dispute with the editor of Shelley, Buxton Forman, 
with whose name he played terrible tricks. The 
correspondence is shot through with radiant flashes of 
light, mingled with outburts of childishness. The hand- 
writing clearly shows the curious elements of which the 
poet was composed. Of my friend, J. P, Nichol, he 
had said when he saw him for the first time : " If ever 
I saw a young man with a Jook of genius, there he 
stands ! " This was a unique compliment from Swin- 
burne — at least, I never heard of his apostrophizing 
anyone else in like manner. My friend was indeed a 
genius, though he will never be recognized as such 
owing to the deep strain of mystical quietism which 
ran through him, turning all the gauds of life to dust. 
He could with great ease have become a tutor and 
fellow of Balliol had he deigned to work for the Schools 
and take the high class to which his amazing abilities 
entitled him . At the age of seventeen, a poem of his was 



J. p. NICHOL 87 

published, I think, in the Nineteenth Century : by twenty- 
one or so he was at his highest period of development. 
He never deigned to offer any of his verse elsewhere, 
though some of his sonnets were equal to Rossetti's, 
and his knowledge of the pre-Raphaelites and their 
ways was unrivalled. He was like a youthful king! 
sitting in the ruins of his splendid palace. His astonish- 
ing verbal memory for verse or prose brought any of 
our poets before us in connection, for he Would quote 
pages of Crashaw, Milton, Keats, Swinburne or Rossetti 
as though he were reading over their shoulders as they 
wrote. At the time we met I was passing through the 
fiery furnace of a love affair, and we used to spend 
hours of an evening together in my rooms at 13, King 
Edward Street (I changed my rooms each term). ;Here 
we made a considerable number of rather melodious 
sounds, reciting poetry in English and French, and 
it • was typical of the environment that the proprietor 
of the house eventually objected to^ the " noise " of 
our recitations, though the street Was the noisiest in 
Oxford ; shouts of all sorts of hunting-m'en, blowing! 
of coach-horns at ;all hours of the night being accepted 
by the Philistine proprietor as in the natural order of 
things. 

Nichol also disagreed with' Jowett in the ttiatter 
of his studies as I had done. The Master, too, had 
been impressed with Nichol when he first saw him, and 
correctly thought he perhaps had another great poet under, 
his wing. And so, indeed, he had!, but of course worldly 
success being Jowett 's standard, the moment he saw 
that " young Nichol " was not going to try for a 
fellowship, he dropped him like a cold egg at one of 
those breakfast parties to which were bidden hobnails, 
earls — and possible genius. 



88 SWINBURNE, WILDE, AND PATER 

Nichol, to his intense disgust, was on one occasion 
forced to write a book by the necessity for obtaining 
a little cash ! This he did contemptuously, almost 
at a sitting : it is a monograph on Victor Hugo, and 
by far the best study of the French poet in our language, 
though Nichol always spoke of it with contempt and 
said he took no pains with it. The fact was that his 
intuition was so infallible and the riches of memory 
and imagination at his command were so great that 
when obliged to open a door of his miser's cabinet, 
pieces of eight came tumbling over one another upon 
the publisher's counter in golden pfrofusion. 

There is a beautiful passage in Gautier's Mademoiselle 
de Maupin, which applies to my friend. It begins '■' Jaime 
ces silencieux qui emporte leur secret dans la tomhe" 
and I always felt that Nichol, with those wild blue 
eyes of his flashing their intuitions, saw something that 
for others was concealed. 

My own intercourse with Swinburne was only 
occasional, and much later in life, but I may as well 
mention now what rises in the memory. I too enjoyed 
the hospitality at Putney of which my old friend and 
fellow dramatic critic. Max Beerbohm, has made so 
entertaining a dish. I too sat at the table between 
the two old men, Watts-Dunton and Swinburne, during 
the repast, which certainly was not nearly so interesting 
to me as conversation alone wEth the poet in his library. 
He always gave me the impresison of two things : a 
great red-plumed eagle pinioned and unable to rise 
from the ground more than a few feet. He would 
sit by me on the sofa, and as he grew interested 
in the sound of his own words, he would spread his 
arms like wings and agitate his body just like a bird 
taking flight, while his large green eyes blazed with' 



SWINBURNE AT LUNCHEON 89 

enthusiasms of the past, kindled in the enthusiasm 
of the present moment. This was very evident 
to me also on one of the last occasions that we 
met in London at a house hospitable also to the 
poet, Mrs. Molesworth's, authoress of the Cuckoo 
Clock. Mrs. Moles worth's daughter, Juliet, is the wife 
of my brother Julian, whose feats in another field I 
hope to mention. Swinburne loved Mrs. Moles worth's 
work, about which he has written, and included her in 
his very short visiting list. On the occasion of this last 
meeting, I remember his shouting to Watts (both were 
very deaf) as they entered the room : " Be sure you 
call the cab and let us get away immediately after 
lunch." Watts shouted back in repjly that he would 
not fail to do so. '■. 

Luncheon, as at Putney, was rather a strained 
meal : I remember Miss Olive Molesworth's asking 
which of the tiny twin nieces, Mary or Alice, 
Swinburne preferred. At first he did not realize 
what was meant, but when he did, replied with 
his usual emphasis : " Both delightful children : of 
course there is no difference whatever between them' " 
Xthis sentence was punctuated with those queer staccato 
movements of the body to which I have referred). This 
was not very encouraging, but after luncheon I managed 
to get him started on Baudelaire by quoting a few 
lines from the exquisite farewell to the great French 
poet, and from that, by way of the " Leucadian leap " to 
Sappho, to Byron and to his own prowess in swimming. 
At once he began to talk of his visit to Sark, and 
described his early morning vow to swim out to sea 
until the sun was fully risen above the horizon. He rose 
and fell rhythmically with the waxing and waning of 
his own words, and it was one of the most felicitous 



90 SWINBURNE, WILDE, AND PATER 

moments in a life crowtded with exquisite impressions 
thus to see the golden and purple and silver of that 
morning in the Channel as the poet brought it back 
to life and laid it before the eyes and ears. Meanwhile 
time had been going on, but Swinburne was now wound 
up, clocks and cabs had no meaning for him, and 
when Watts came up and discreetly shouted that the 
cab was waiting, he was waved imperiously a Way with 
a single gesture, and I enjoyed an avalanche of sound 
and colour lasting far into the afternoon. 

The other impression given to me by Swinburne 
was of a diver walking with great care on the bed of 
the ocean. With infinite precautions he would approach 
an arm-chair, carefully inspect and feel it ; having 
manoeuvred his way round the rocks and boulders 
represented by other chairs and tables. Wherever 
he was, I had tl\e feeling that he did not belong to 
terra firma Hke you and me, but should really be 
some thousands of feet above or beloAV his present 
level — in the empyrean or the abysses of the ocean. 

To return to those undergraduate years at Oxford, 
as I look back upon them they rise again like Keats' 
beaker, " full of the warm south," " with beaded bubbles 
winking at the brim " — bubbles of the champagne we 
so often quaffed, and of that more aery Vintage that runs 
only in the veins of youth triumphant. My time was about 
equally spent in revelling with the revellers and tread- 
ing the fairylands that poetry opens to the ken of those 
who will take the trouble to court her, not on bended 
knee, but with the gallant assurance of the knightly lover 
as Keats advised . Only once again have I trodden equally 
enchanted ground, and that was in the late 'nineties at 
Florence, where a gay band of us did astonishing things 
beneath the light of the moon. At Oxford, as at 



BALLIOL AND THE RAILWAY CONTRACTORS 91 

Florence, everyone who was not revelling seemed 
pleased to make a flowery way for the revellers — with' 
the exception at Oxford of the Proctors and Bulldogs, 
who were paid to be unpleasant, and hardly earned their 
wages, so little did they interfere with our pro- 
ceedings : indeed one grew almost to like their 
square chins and boots as shading for our revels. 
At Oxford, it is true, the revels were often conducted 
within doors, whereas at Florence we frequently danced 
through the streets, headed by our mtisic and by fair 
maidens, strewing flowers on the unamazed Florentines. 
They accepted us, rather to our surprise, as quite normal, 
and, I fear, looked upon our proceedings w'ith a critical 
eye — an eye that had witnessed the processional triumphs 
of so many poets onwards from Petrarch to Ariosto, and 
their successors could hardly be expected to lighten 
up at gauche Anglo-Saxon and semi-Celtic gambols 
of blond young barbarians from Ultima Thule — ^though 
they were lenient, very lenient, and always made a lane 
for us to pass across the Piazza ! 

Balliol and Christ Church and New College men were 
my chief associates ; Jowett I saw ocdasionally, but had 
no further intercourse with him. The last occasion was 
when he went to Shelley's College University in order 
to commemorate the author of Adonais, '(who had been 
sent down for his earlier writings). I can seei him 
trotting along now in his Vice- Chancellor's robes, with a 
few other University dignitaries in the rear. Balliol iwas 
certainly sufliciently atheistic in the 'eighties, and there 
used to be a joke which always tickled m'e, about the 
Balliol College Chapel with its " gaunt-ribbed barrel 
roof," to quote again friend Plarr. When it was pro- 
posed by an enlightened set of railroad contractors to 
run a railway right into Oxford, Balliol was said to have 



92 SWINBURNE, WILDE, AND PATER 

jumped at the suggestion, and to have offered their 
Chape] as terminus. 

Oscar Wilde visited Oxford as a critic of the drama in 
my time and amused a great many people with his 
paradox. The flow of his language and the quickness of 
his wit were astonishing. Yet he did not always have it 
his own way, and I remiember, during a discussion on 
poetry, after he had been preaching his creed of beauty 
as the sole value, my friend, H. J. Maynard of St. 
John's, sprung up and trounced him vigorously for 
neglecting ethics. Wilde was quite nonplussed by 
Maynard's youthful vigour, and could only murmur : 
" Stern young moralist, stem young moralist." This 
was a feat on Maynard's part, and indeed among all 
my Oxford acquaintances Maynard went nearest to 
living what I would call the Shelleyan life : ethics were 
very prominent in his mind, yet the sesthetic side was 
by no means absent, and I have clear memory of 
some beautiful Spenserian stanzas, which he once 
read to me at Delgaty. They were perfumed like a 
flowering branch of Shelley's Sensitive Plant. He be- 
came a judge in India, and I have only met him once 
since his retirement, on a pension, some years ago. I 
like to greet him here. 

Wilde was, indeed, rarely nonplussed. I was never 
myself a member of the Crabbet Park Club, one of 
the rules of which was that no member must have been 
guilty of serious work, but my friend Harry Cust and 
the present Lord Curzon of Kedlestone both belonged. 
The former told me that on one occasion Wilde was 
the guest of the Club at dinner, and some of the 
members wished him to be elected a member. Among 
these was not numbered Lord Curzon. An objection 
was raised that the proposed member was not eligible. 



WILDE'S REPARTEES 03 

because he had been guilty of doing' serious wiork, 
namely, reading the lessons in a surplice as a "demi." 
at Magdalen College, Oxford. Wilde at once rose to 
reply, admitting the fact, but pleading extenuating 
circumstances as follow^s : " I always read the lessons 
with an air of scepticism', and was invariably reproved 
by the Warden after Divine Service, for ' levity at 
the lectern.' " 

Then, too, his viva voce in Rudiments of Faith and 
Religion at Oxford. He was put on to construe from' 
the Greek of the New Testament, at the verse of St. 
Matthew which records the sale of the Saviour for 
thirty pieces of silver by Barabbas. Wilde, who got 
a First in Greats and taught Mrs. Langtry Latin, con- 
strued a few verses rapidly and correctly. The examiner 
interrupted : " Very good, that will do, Mir, Wilde." 
" Hush, hush," replied the candidate, raising an 
admonitory finger, " let us proceed and see what 
happened to the unfortunate man." 

Plarr tells of Wilde's appearance at Osmlan Edward's 
breakfast table, and of his dictum that my friends, 
Ion Thynne and Edgar Jepson, were respectively the 
Byron and Shelley of their day. Here he was quite 
wrong, for Thynne was more like the hero of 
Huysmann's A Rehours, and Jepson, I am sure, will 
not claim to have resembled either poet. He is too 
fine a poet in prose to care for such comparisons in 
conversation. But Plarr records other sayings of Wilde 
with more of the genuine ring to their metal. Sounding 
brass may be, but who could make the small brass of 
conversation so variously and amusingly resonant as 
Wilde? Of Sir Frederick Leighton, he said that " He 
always seems to paint in scented soaps • " of T, Carlyld, 
" He is a Rabelaisian moralist ; " of sham classicism', 



94 SWINBURNE, WILDE, AND PATER 

" jWe can like all the bad work of lall ages btit our own, 
yet even Firth may come to be admired for his quaint- 
ness and moral force a thousand years hence." 

Whistler and others have been very unjust to Wilde 
in accusing him of plagiarism. He certainly prigged, 
but who among great wits has not done so? He 
always added a twist of his own that made the joke 
as much his as if he had minted the original metal, 
which, by the way, existed as metal long, long 
before. The fact was that Whistler, a wit himself, 
was jealous of excellence anywhere. I always hope 
that Sir Coleridge Kennard will carry out the project 
that he told me of some years ago at Rome, as we 
strode up and do\\Ti his sun-kissied paradise terrace in 
the Via Gregoriana and capped one another's Wildiana. 
He was collecting from the lips of those that had 
heard them with a view to publication, all the un- 
rendered Wilde stories and epigrams. I can add a 
trifle or two to those I have mentioned, but always 
regret that I saw so little of the most brilliant con- 
versationalist of my time — I have heard others of note, 
such as Pater, Whistler, Beardsley, d'Annunzio, Renan 
and Croce. I remember a laird in the south of Scot- 
land, who had entertained Wilde on one of his lecturing 
tours, telling me that he had asked the lecturer if 
he would like to see the garden and then go for a 
walk. Wilde said he would be delighted. The garden 
was about a quarter of a mile from' the house, and 
thither they proceeded. After duly inspecting flowers 
and shrubs the host turned to his guest with : " Well, 
shall we go for our walk? " " Go for our walk ! Why, 
we have just come back from a long and delightful 
walk," was the reply. 

It is curious how rarely the Irish bull comes 



I MEET WALTER PATER 95 

into Wilde's epigrams^ though in paradox, at any, 
rate, wondferful effects are attainable with it. Wit- 
ness thie following by an Irish baronet of my 
acquaintance which happened the other day in my 
own presence. Our visit to t3ie same hospitable 
and charming lady happened to coincide. The con- 
versation turned upon social undesirables. The baronet 
declared that it was highly reprehensible to introduce 
any of these into a respectable family circle. With 
such virtuous sentiments we all agreed, and our hostess 
then remarked, addressing the baronet with a smile : 
" I hope Sir Timothy (a substituted name) has not 
met any one objectionable in our family circle." 

" Indeed and I have, Mirs. ," came from' the baronet 

in his richest brogue. " And who may I ask was 
the individual in question? " " It was Patthrick 
Murrphy, and I introduced him to you meself." 

I wonder if this will appear so excruciatingly funny 
in print as it did on flyingi from the lips of its creator, 
who spoke, of course, in all seriousness. 

No doubt the reason that Wilde never committed' 
anything in this line was his possession of an acutely 
logical mind that controlled the flow* of his fancy 
within its banks. What a pity that it did' not control 
his conduct ! 

At Oxford I met him' several times, and was one 
day walking along; the gravel path behind Keble when 
I jnet him in company with a pale-faqed, rather sad- 
looking man. I was very proud when they stopped, 
and I was introduced to uWalter Pater. Pater, to whom 
I shall refer later, I got to know better than Wilde, 
though here, too, I regret that I did not see more of 
him at Oxford and' in London. I went a few times to 
luncheon with vWild'e at Tite Street when his wife 



96 SWINBURNE, WILDE, AND PATER 

Constance was alive. I had known her some years 
before as Miss Lloyd, and she had come to stay with 
us at Delgaty, where I had written verses to her eyes 
and presented her with a coronal of wiater-lilies jand 
one of linncBa borealis. This rare and beautiful little 
creeper of the north I had discovered when, as a child 
of five, I had trotted into the wood during the month' 
of June and found beneath the great Scots firs a tiny 
white bloom growing upon long tendrilled stems with 
rounded leaves, less than a threepenny piece in size., 
I brought a handful of it to my father and mbther; 
neither of whom at once recoglnized the plant, although 
both were botanists. Of late years its area of growth 
has extended, and I daresay that it now covers ten yards 
square, but it i has never been found elsewhere on 
Delgaty, and is, I believe, known only in a very few 
places in Great Britain. Less rare in Norway, Linnseus, 
the great botanist, called it by his own name, so much 
did its fairy -like grace caress his eye. And very twell 
it looked as a coronal to the brow of Constance with 
a water-lily or so lolling at her virginal breast. 

On one occasion, I remiemlber Wilde's declaiming 
against Walt Whitman, whose crudities of languagie 
have always offended me. In an interview that he had 
with him, the author of Sp'eci.men Days remarked with 
satisfaction : "I aim at making my verse look all 
neat and pretty on the pages, like the epitaph on a 
square tombstone." My friend, Victor Plarr the poet, 
who also heard the anecdote told by Wilde, but on a 
different occasion (in Herbert Home's rooms), adds that 
while repeating the quotation Wilde held up an imaginary 
page and pointed along it. Certainly Wilde's prose 
is classical, and it was amusing to hear him! disputingi 
aJmicably onth^tj firlst mjeeting with Pater, who; had 



KEATS' SONNET ON BLUE 97 

dropped his favourite remark to mfe when I had shyly 
pleaded guilty to having written a dramatic poem 
Escarlamonde : " Why do you write poetry? It is so 
much more difficult to write prose." Of Wilde's verse 
very little of first-rate quality exists, but his Ballad 
of Reading Gaol and The Harlot's House are jewels 
that will glitter on later worlds than ours. Of this 
latter poem I possess a holograph manuscript with a 
complimentary inscription by the author to the effect 
that he had never heard it better said. I remember 
on the occasion of my repeating it, his reading first 
Poe's Annabel Lee, of which he was very fond, and 
tlhen Keats' sonnet on Blue, the latter fro mi the virginal 
MS., which he said ha,d been given to him! after one 
of his lectures in the United States by a very old lady 
who declared that she was related to Keats — I think 
he said a niece — and that she had been prompted to 
present him with it owing to his beautiful reading of 
the Ode on a Grecian Urn. 

The friend I have already quoted also describes 
evenings at 20, Fitzroy Street, where there was a sort 
of late pre-Raphaelite colony. Here came Wilde on 
one or two occasions and received much worship frorri 
Lionel Johnson and Dowson, who " seemed to kneel 
before him side by side." It was said that the great 
man wore a black shirt-front. 

Dowson I only met once or twice with my friend, 
J. P. Nichol, already described, but of Lionel Johnson 
I saw a good deal at Oxford in my last year, when I 
had migrated from the unattached to Exeter College, 
where I was equally " unattached." He was a truly 
delightful companion, frail and slightly built, steeped 
in the Greek and Latin classics and a keen Roman 
Catholic. He first introduced me to Newman's 

7 



98 SWINBURNE, WILDE, AND PATER 

Apologia and Defence of Faith, which I remember 
reading and afterwards discussing with him in his 
rooms at New College to a late hour, and on more 
than one occasion having to take my departure by 
dropping from somebody's college window that was just 
above the level of Holywell Street. At about mid- 
night Johnson would put down the Apologia and say : 
" I think, my dear Ainslie, that the labourer is worthy 
of his hire, especially if he toil through the silent 
watches of the night. Shall it be champagne or ^sal- 
volatile and water? " With great firmness I invariably 
selected the former beverage, while that scholar and 
gentleman, my host, generally took " a little of both." 
Johnson was also a great admirer of Pater's work, 
and some of his best work is descriptive of iPater's 
curious perfections. 

Those escalades of window's became almost a part 
of the routine of collegfe life. I had already had 
some practice in the art at Eton, and flatter myself 
that even now. I could cope with some problems in bars, 
bricks and glass that would paralyse my contemporaries 
at any rate. After I had gone down, what must have 
been a pleasant little social club, was formed at Oxford 
under the title of " The Oxford Alpine Club." As 
described to me by the alarmed mother of one of its 
most distinguished members, this club used to meet 
after midnight in the room of each in succession. 
Entrance was, of course, obtained by escalading the 
college wall by means of ropes, grappling irons, and 
other customary Alpine tools. After a little light 
refreshment, assuming that the host of the evening was 
a member of Balliol, the members of the club would 
leave that college by the wall separating it from' 
Trinity, and then, strollingi across thte Broad, would drop; 



LUCRETIA LACKS A TARQUIN 99 

in upon the Rector of Exeter, but finding hirri plungte'd 
in profound slumbers they would have the consideration 
not to awake him, but proceed, of course " across 
country " by way of Brasenose to Christ Church, where 
a light supper would be provided. The members 
became very expert at the negotiation of the big jumps, 
and all went as merrily as an American divorce until one 
day an old membter of the club came down on a visit,^ 
and joined in the jaunt as in former days. :Whethe,r 
it was that the light supper at the " House " had 
included too much lobster and champagne or that his 
memory had been clouded with the frivolities of 
Mayfair, he made a sad mistake on his way ,through 
New College, turning .the handle of the wrong door 
and plunging at three in the morning into the apart- 
ment of a spinster of some fifty summers, nearly 
related to the Head of the College. Of course she 
was at once convinced that her fate was to be 
Lucretia's and rent the air with piercing shrieks. Un- 
fortunately, instead of rapidly retreating the way he 
came, my friend began an elaborate apology for 
mistaking the door, and an explanation of the chief 
aims and objects of the Oxford Alpine Club. Long 
before he had finished she was convinced that instead 
of Tarquin, an escaped lunatic stood before her, and 
the shrieks redoubled. Quantities of undei'graduates 
in every shade of dressing-gown, with a sprinkling of 
blinking dons came crowding up the staircase and filled 
the quad. The fat was in the fire, and my poor friend 
had to pay considerable sums in the Vice -Chancellor's 
Court, besides being struck off all manner of books 
and warned off the sacrosanct precincts within the 
University's jurisdiction. 

To return for a moment to Wilde. I saw but little 



100 SWINBURNE, WILDE, AND PATER 

of him after leaving Oxford beyon'd the two or i three 
occasions of lunching in Tite Street ; he became the 
fashion about the same time, and was dining out ,a 
great deal, often without his wife. Also, for the ,first 
time, I began to hear stories of an unlpleasant nature 
about him and decided to drop the connection, as any- 
thing of that sort has always been inexpressibly shocking 
and distasteful to me, though I hope that I am' broad- 
minded enough to recognize and appreciate uniquely 
splendid intellectual qualities whenever they appear. It 
is easy enough for perfectly normal people, like the 
present writer, and ninety-nine hundreds of the com- 
munity to blame those afflicted in the manner of poor 
iWilde, but I think that with the advance of mental 
[pathology, British will fall into line with Continental 
jurisprudence and recognize that his case called rather 
for confinement under the care of doctors than for 
a savage sentence worse than death. Thus it was that 
I saw nothing of him' for many years, though I 
occasionally met and heard of him from those who 
did see him, such as the late Lady Ripon, who as 
Lady De Grey, stood by him all through his troubles 
and told me several curious little details about his life 
in prison and afterwards when he was released. The 
last time I met her was at Lady Northcliffe's at 
luncheon at 22, St. James's Place, during the war, when 
she sat between the late Lord Northcliffe and myself land 
regaled me with those scraps of London gossip which 
are nothing but flimsy in themselves until the limelight 
of a bright and kindly wit like hers dresses them up 
and sets them dancing in the ballroom of the brain — 
and are not bank notes flimsy? 

Wilde also had in a supreme degree the capacity 
for rendering interesting or amusing, almost any material 



WILDE'S AMAZING FEAT 101 

that he touched, and I remember a rather common 
little theatrical proprietor telling me of the strangfe 
circumstances that connected him for a short time Avith 
Wilde, after his release from prison. Wilde was in 
Paris at the time, and it was a question ,of gettinigj 
him to finish a play, for which he had already received 
(and spent) two hundred pounds " in advance of 
royalties." The syndicate was beginning to get anxious 
about this two hundred, yet was quite prepared to 
venture a grteat deal more if there were a good prospect 
of obtaining the play. Wilde was notoriously short 
of money, some said even of food, and that he was 
living chiefly on absinthe, so the syndicate decided to 
make an appointment -at one of the big restaurants — 
I think he said the Cafe de Paris. Six o'clock was 
the hour fixed, and the little manager, who might be 
described as gross but not green sat waiting anxiously, 
flanked on either side by dapper beady-eyed individuals 
of Mke kidney. At about seven the lace-covered 
swing doors swayed slowly arud admitted the dramatist, 
looking very unkempt and miserable. He approached 
the table, and with a semi-circular bow to the trio 
which ignored their proffered paws said : " Gentlemen, 
I have here with me one of the four acts of the play 
that I promised to deliver to you finished to-day. 
Certain things have occurred to make it impossible for 
me to write down the remaining acts, but they are 
all here " (touching his forehead he sank into a chair 
facing them and lit a cigarette) " only you must give 
me wine, yellow sparkling wine, and plenty of it. 
Then I {will tell you all the play, and I will write down 
the last thriee acts to-morrow." Champagne was at 
once ordtered, and also food, which Wilde hardly touched. 
As the wine rapidly disappeared and reappeared in new 



102 SWINBURNE, WILDE, AND PATER 

bottles the play grew like a flower upon thei lips of 
the poet, holding the three of themi entranced, so that 
they even forgot their material interests as they listened 
to the wondrous dialectic. For he made each personage 
live and, as it were, walk about before entering the 
action, introducing them, one by one, sketched with in- 
fallible precision in a few strokes. Then he went on 
with the actual dialogue, sparkling all over with wit 
and humorous characterization, like a heap of rubies 
and diamonds moved before the eyes and arranged in 
the form of a crown by this Faberger in wbrds. He 
did much more than repeat the play from memory, 
for he suggested the acting, the scenery, the stage, 
and even the aristocraitic audience, adding all sorts of 
sly comments and interpolations in the form of stagfe 
asides and directions. They amounted to flashlights 
thrown upon the unwritten script, and gave his hearers 
the impression of being present at a successful first- 
night performance. Thus he improvised and created 
for about an hour and a half ; then he suddenly 
declared that he must leave them, but would infallibly 
deliver the remainder of the play within the week. They 
handed to him a small further sum on account, which 
he accepted with the gesture of one conferring a great 
favour, which was perfectly true, and repeating the semi- 
circular magnificence of his bow and again ignoring 
proffered paws plunged into the stream of the Avenue 
de rOpera, never to be seen alive by any of them again. 
What became of the one written act of the play? 
I believe that it eventually passed into the possession 
of one of his many false friends, under whose name 
a garbled version of the play was served up unsuccess- 
fully after Wilde's death. Garbled indeed, even if 
memorized from parts of ithe telling heard or over- 



PERFORMED ONCE ONLY 103 

heard. The play itself, in all its splendour of thought 
and expression, surpassing for brilliancy A Woman of 
No Importance and the irresistible Ernest, had but one 
performance — in the Cafe de Paris on a winter's night 
before an audience of three. There wiU never be 
another. 



CHAPTER VI 

MERRY-GO-ROUND 

Anecdote of Francisque Sarcey — " Mr. Shelley " — William Morris and the 
Assafoetida — Cudgels and Cotnmunism — Arthur Bourchier and Jowett — 
Hon. Robert Scot Montagu— A Jovial Alcestis—O.V.D.S. — My Mid- 
summer Night's Dream — Billiard Match with Ralph Nevill — Marquis of 
Clanrikarde v. Sir Robert Peel. 

I HAVE given a good deal of space to these glimpses 
of Wilde, though, of course, I saw a number of other 
people during those years, and have tried to bringi some 
of them into the picture, but he was by far the most 
brilliant, and often there is the semblance of some- 
thing to catch hold of in a personality, which turns 
out to be thin air after all. 

Of Sarcey, the great French dramatic critic, it is 
told in this connection that on one occasion he decided 
(like most dramatic critics if they would be honest and 
confess) that he would do a bit of a job' and puff his 
friend's (son. It was not a question of a play, 
but of a book of poems on this occasion, for 
Sarcey also gave lectures on literature. He duly 
appeared and faced a crowded audience armed with 
notebooks, holding the volume on which he was going 
to lecture in his hand. He had inserted markers to 
guide him in selecting for quotation certain passages 
which had seemed on a first perusal less bad than 
the rest. 

" Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, " I am going 
to tell you to-da.y about a new poet, a remark - 

104 



"MR." SHELLEY 105 

able young man, whose first volume of verse you see 
in my hand. According to my usual custom, I will 
begin by reading to you some of the most striking 
and beautiful passages and then comment upon them. 
For instance, the following — he turned the pages to 

the first quotation — " Does it not strike you ? " he 

glanced down the page and continued : " No, no, we 
will pass on to the next. No, that's worse." And 
so, on and on he went until he came to the sixth 
marker, and desperately plunged this time into the 
reading aloud of the passage in question. When he 
came to the end he said, " Does not this strike you 
as singularly beautiful? " Then his native honesty and 
sincerity got the better, of hinl and he continued : "I 
am sure it does not, for a worse written, worse con- 
structed set of verses it has rarely been my misfortune to 
read aloud." And so he went on, nowl quotingi freely 
from all the marked passages and explaining to the 
highly amused audience what an extraordinarily bad 
writer was his friend's son — heartily damning what he 
had set out to belaud. 

A like reason prevents the present writer, who is 
equally ;grieved, from dwelling upon the people who 
loomed big enough in those days, but have since 
sunk into oblivion, like that New College don 
who during my first term took part in a dis- 
cussion upon Shelley's writing's, referring all the time 
to the poet as " Mr. Shelley," and to sucW work as 
the Epipsychidion as " pretty verses." I remember 
springing to my feet and hurling unmeasured invective 
at the unlucky speaker, who shrivelled up altogether 
and finally slunk out of the room, although, as I was 
afterwards informed, he was one of the lights of the 
College Debating Society. I believe he died during 



106 MERRY-GO-ROUND 

the term, so that on this occasion, at any rate, poetic 
justice was done. It is curious and admirable 
what force the sincere expression of a passionate con- 
viction gives. Shelley amounted almt)st to a religion 
vdth some of us in those days, and like most young 
men, I passed through a phase of vague uncritical 
socialistic sentiment, inspired by the poet. This led me 
to attend a meeting held by William! Morris and 
Aveling in Holywell Street with a view of preaching 
Socialism to the undergraduates. The meeting* was 
packed, and I remember that I was sitting close to 
the platform where Aveling first held forth in a rather 
unconvincing way. His place Was soon taken by the 
old paper-hanging poet, and we all sat tensely awaiting 
his eloquence. Suddenly, just as he was opening his 
lips, with the gospel of universal equality upon them, 
there came a cry of : " My God, what an awful 
stench ! " from the third row of seats. People sprang 
up and rushed away from' the infected spot, but the 
appalling odour spread all over the hall, and I saw 
the beaming countenance of my friend Arthur Capel, 
emerging through the mist of the assafoetida, which he 
had so accurately timed to explode at the psychological 
moment. The " nice " ladies present made a rapid 
exit, and people rushed to and fro. Aveling slunk 
away like a jackal, but Morris w'as splendid. Like 
an old white-maned lion he stood his ground and 
roared from the platform that he was ready to 
fight any four of " you young blackguards." Shouts 
of laughter and cheers greeted me as with one or 
two others, including H. J. Maynard, 1 climbed on 
the platform to support him. The leonine front showed 
by the old poet prevented further extremes of ragging, 
but the audience was in no mood to hear of any Utopia 



WILLIAM MORRIS 107 

which began by smelUng so bad. There was nothing 
for it but to retire in good order, which [we proceeded 
to do at the invitation of Morris. He had roomis at 
the Clarendon, and thither we adjourned. On arrival 
he ordered whiskies all round, and his astonishment 
was frank when Maynard and I and other young 
sprigs Shelleyan refused the beverage on the ground 
that we never took alcohol. " What Is happening to 
the younger generation? " growled old Morris, as he 
drank up all the whiskies himself and regaled us epically 
with the breath of mighty songs. 

My friend Plarr records of this meeting that he went 
to it as a steward, though his views did not and do not 
coincide with those of Webb, Lenin, Shaw' or Trotsky. 
The journal Justice was to be sold at the meeting, 
so Plarr asked Morris if he utterly despised profit. 
" I do utterly despise it," replied Morris, plumping into 
the pitfall. " Then why do you sell Justice P " Morris 
then grumpily gave orders that Justice was to be given 
away. Plarr further adds that Ion Thynne knocked 
Vere down with a cudgel. This I did not see, and 
perhaps the Hon. Antony Vere will tell us what 
happened .to him at the meeting. He appeared to me 
to be winning all along the line. Plarr also declares 
that he was so pleased with Thynne at the time that 
he presented him with the Colloquies of Erasmus 
(1671). Whether this gift was bestowed as a reward 
for knocking down Antony Vere or is rather to be 
looked upon as a token of general appreciation for 
his learning in the Greek and Latin Fathers in the 
original tomes, which decorated and concealed his 
shelves and floor in the small room at New College, 
and of the Longleat pheasants which abounded at his 
hospitable breakfast table beneath the gigantic Japanese 



108 MERRY-GO-ROUND 

umbrella that shaded its centre, I do not know. He 
has jbeen dead a good many years now, and passed 
most of his time latterly at Fort Augustus with the 
monks, or at Rushmore with his brother Alec, where 
we stayed together the last time I saw him!. He 
presented me at Oxford with' a copy of that great 
French work, the Fleurs da Mai of Baudelaire in the 
wickedest binding that he could devise. It is a beautiful 
volume. I shall not bequeath it to the Carnegie Free 
Library. The edges of the leaves are a vivid sulphur, 
the binding dappled green calf, the sides of light and 
deeper and a deepest green as it breaks against a nest 
of treacherous golden serpents in the centre, and again 
and again upon golden dragons and livirig gargoyles 
at the comers. The back is a rich network of golden 
tracery among serpents concealed in a meadow of green. 
Within, the dedication to a fellow lover of the Muses 
and some lines in Greek fromi Homer. 

We were, some of us, naively subtle and perverse 
in those days, which has not prevented us from turning 
out quite decent citizens in after life. Perhaps it was 
a pose, and Ion Thynne was rather the moralist of his 
later days, than a mediseval necromancer controllingi 
sinister potencies. Serpents were the fashion in 
" neckwear " at breakfast. We generally carried one 
or two loose in our pockets. Jepson kept his black 
brood in the ivy outside his window at BalUol. I 
preferred the lighter variety with a Cubist pattern. 
My landladies disliked both. 

With the exception of Lord Robert Cecil, none of 
my acquaintances at Oxford have become very- 
prominent in politics, though there were some fine 
speakers among them, notably the late R. C. Fillingham, 
who took orders and was much in the public eye 



R. C. FILLINGHAM 109 

through his attacks on Ritualism in the Church of 
England. These were not limited to rhetoric, but 
assumed a drastic form which led to his appearance 
in the Law Courts on more than one occasiop. 
Delightful in conversation, he managed to carry with 
him in pulpit, platform, or witness-box, that same easy 
breezy style, punctuated with witticisms and delivered 
with the air of a man of the world endowed with 
complete knowledge, and letting his audience enjoy just 
the quintessence — and no more. One felt he had all 
the rest about him in his ample pockets, or at any 
rate in his overcoat within easy reach. Fillingham 
was a far more brilliant man than many members of 
the present Cabinet, and it is curiously true that 'the 
world " knows nothing of its greatest men " in a sense 
different from that of Philip van Arteveldt, where a 
discontented man is supposed to be speaking. Certainly 
in politics it is a complex of qualities miostly practical 
that win the great positions, and the like applies in 
the Church, at the Bar, and (in England) on the Stage. 
The virtuosi like Fillingham rarely come into the full 
limelight . 

My old friend, Arthur Bourchier, happens to be a 
very fine' comedian, unsurpassable in certain parts, 
especially social comedy and in certain Shakespearean 
characters. Had he, however, always worked under 
the directions of a stage-manager his artistic achieve- 
ment would probably have been greater. But what 
has made his success since those Oxford days when 
he was at New Inn Hall, that handy retreat to Christ 
Church and other Colleges, longi since abolished, has 
been his practical social sense. His cleverness in 
flattering that vain old pedagogue Jowett and persuad- 
ing him to not only permit but to patronize the theatre at 



110 MERRY-GO-ROUND 

Oxford as Vice-Chancellor, and the foundation of the 
O.U.D.S. (Oxford University Dramatic Society) of 
which the present writer is an original mtember, were 
part and parcel of that practical judgment which has 
given him success and provided the stepping-stones for 
his London career. In those far-off days I remember 
at one of the meetings of the O.U.D.S. there was, 
considerable opposition to some scheme of Bourchier's. 
He heard the various speakers out, then sprang to his 
feet with an utterance that carried conviction as he 
thumped it into the table, though it still makes me laugh 

when I repeat it : " d^ ^n and (supply 

local colour). I, A. B., known on two Continents 
to be thwarted by a parcel of b-o-y-s ! " (He /was 
quite unknown outside a small circle at that timie). 
I was never an actor, but used to contribute articles' 
on those early Shakesperean productions to the Oxford 
Magazine, and was (and am) always immensely enter- 
tained with Bourchier's society, for if he will allow 
me to say so, he is invariably quite as good companyj 
oft" the stage as upon it. We used frequently to meet, 
and I heard all the secrets of the stage as we knew 
it at Oxford, and learned in little what went on and 
goes on in the management of great theatrical affairs. 
Brightest of the many brilliant youngi men who took 
part in the Greek and Elizabethan plays done in imy 
time at Oxford, was my dear old friend, Robert Scott 
Montagu, brother of my good friend, Lord Montagu, 
of Beaulieu. He was a member of New College, full 
of the joy of living, and endowed with a most charming 
personality. I remember during the run of an early 
production of the Alcestis of Euripides in Greek that 
we of the O.U.D.S. were all hospitably entertained 
at an early luncheon party by an opulent patron of 



THE O.U.D.S. Ill 

the budding drama. Champagne flowed and only- 
ceased flowing when it was time to adjourn to the 
theatre to hear Bourchier as Death (Thanatos), supported 
by the chorus in his great speech beginning : " Thou 
knowest my ways." The speech came forth with great 
eloquence, and the chorus of Canaphoroi ^{basket 
bearers), with baskets on their heads, signified their 
approval (as indeed was their duty) by verbally ratifying 
the sentiments of Thanatos, and at the same time 
swaying their heads in rhythmic coincidence with the 
beats of the iambic verse. On the occasion in question, 
however, the chorus agreed so emphatically with 
Thanatos that they swayed not only their heads, but 
also their bodies, and the audience were astonished 
at seeing the baskets, which were in unstable equilibrium, 
beginning to topple over amid the ill-suppressed 
hilarity of their bearers. I do not think any baskets 
actually did fall (they mutually propped one another 
up), but I rarely laughed so much in a theatre as 
upon that occasion. I hope that Professor Gilbert 
Murray was not present during this comic perform- 
ance of the tragedy. I met himl occasionally at 
H. J. Maynard's rooms in St. John's College while we 
were undergraduates, but have not done so since Oxford, 
save at the Philosophical Congress, also at Oxford, 
held quite recently. His versions of the Greek classic 
poets are not well known to me, as I prefer to read 
them in the original with the old-fashioned Bohn trans- 
lation, or better still the Loeb, to help me rapidly over 
difficult passages. But I have pleasant memories of 
his serious, kindly face. 

The O.U.D.S. brought me into contact with a number 
of men from different Colleges and with some who did 
not belong to the University, such as Claude and 



112 MERRY-GO-ROUND 

Eustace Ponsonby, whom I first met during the 
Canterbury Cricket Week where I was the guest of 
Arthur Bourchier. The performances at the theatre 
and in the field have been so often described that I 
shall indulge in no repetition of other folk's texts, no 
digging out of old programmes and menus. Here, as 
elsewhere, what went on behind the scenes was often 
more amusing than what happened " in the front 
of the house." I shall never forget Scrobbies' 
acting, with a large pocket-handkerchief as sole 
stage " property," of a leading Canterbury Stroller's 
performance — when crossing the Channel in stormy 
weather. The victim, who was present on the occasion, 
finally rose up in his wrath to gtapple with his tormentor 
and the curtain fell upon this one-act farce. Claude 
Ponsonby is as fine an actor in modern or restorative 
comedy as ever I wish to see, and it is a thousand 
pities that he never accepted the offers made to him 
by Sir Charles Wyndham. 

Poor Alan Mackinnon was the winiged Ariel of all 
our productions, as my friend W. L. Courtney (then 
fellow and tutor of New College) was our Mentor, 
Bourchier and he did wonderful things in blue pencil 
to the text of the Bard, but William ,Poel had not as yet 
penetrated to Oxford, or those who knew about him 
were determined that we should not know. We were 
too proudly delighted to be producing Henry IV at all 
to give much thought to the sequence or omission of 
scenes and the retention of the complete text. 

I have come now to the end of my three years at 
Oxford without, I hope, proving tedious by the enumera- 
tion of facts and dates that can elsewhere be obtained 
in profusion. Personally this whole period was like 
an acting of the Midsunifmr Night's Dream. Things 



WALKING ON AIR 113 

just went on happening delightfully, one after the 
other. Brilliant and amusing people kept appear- 
ing from nowhere and doing their very best to 
charm or to entertain. Mother Earth was herself 
buoyant beneath our steps, which had in them that 
delightful spring that my old diplomtatic colleague, 
Charles des Graz, a Cambridge (running) blue declares 
left him when he left the University. Edward Mitchell- 
Innes, K.C. and Morris, the University coach, of whom 
I saw much in those last days at Oxford,, will know 
what I mean. I think, too, that the constantly present 
acted drama made everyday things assume a sort of 
glamour. We were walking upon enchanted ground 
in an enchanted meadow. 

For many years I have been able to return to this 
meadow and to walk there occasionally, and I hope to 
convey some slight impression of it to the reader. 

I left Eton attended by the complete works of Gray 
duly signed and attested by Dr. Hornby, the head 
master ; from Oxford with the slips of blue paper 
certifying that I had qualified for the B.A. degree. 
The reading necessary for a Pass hardly inter- 
fered at all with the ordinary course of amusement.: 
At both places I dwelt exactly three years, so that 
neither had the chance of getting stale, though I 
sometimes have regretted that I did not spend a fourth 
year at Eton in order to enjoy the glories of " Pop," 
and of a higher position in the boats than the modest 
" Defiance " with which I left. But I am sure that 
it is well to drain no cup, however sweet, to the dregs, 
for the aliquld amari is certainly there to mingle with it. 

I spent a few weeks in London before going to 
Tours to study French, and saw a good deal of Albert 
Osborne, Ralph Nevill, and others I had known at 

8 



114 MERRY-GO-ROUND 

Eton or at Oxford, or both'. We frequented the 
Bristol, which was then the only available restaurant 
of the present modern type, though such ancient 
institutions as the Cafe Royal and Rule's and Romano's 
of course existed. Another favourite haunt was Long's 
Hotel, and it was in the billiard-roomi there that took 
place my great match of 500 upi level for a pony 
at billiards with Ralph Nevill. We were neither of us 
great performers, but our methods were, and always 
have been, different — we frequently played in after days 
at the St. James's Club, of which I was a member 
for thirty years. Ralph attracts the attention of the 
goddess of fortune by smacking her hard, while I [try 
to win her favour with gentler methods. On this 
occasion we had a small gallery of friends plus, of 
course, an omniscient marker. We ploughed away 
through the first four hundred, and the game was 
called 470 all. Then ensued marvellous ups and 
downs of luck, ending in the score being called : 
Nevill 498, Ainslie 499. Fortune was fickle to 
her gentler votary on this occasion. Nevill smacked 
her even harder than usual — ^^as hard as he could. 
The astonished red ball, which had probably never had 
such a whack in its life, leapt into the air the height 
of the lamp-shades and colliding with the gas bracket, 
banged down upon the edge of the table and rolled 
strenuously labout the floor while the white coursed 
round and round the table like a mad world in 
miniature. I had won the match by a single point. 
This was certainly the most amusing and exciting game 
I ever played, though I have looked on ait equally 
entertaining matches at the club between Nevill and 
the late General Kelly, whose adjurations addressed to 
the balls, the general company, and the Higher Powers 



OLD SIR ROBERT PEEL 115 

of the Universe were interspersed with frequent whiskies 
and sodas, asides to himself, and comments to the 
marker upon his dark fate in heingi eternally con- 
demned to face such an antagonist. Yet the 
General, although usually the loser, always preferred 
Nevill as an adversary. The billiard-room in those days 
was fully attended in the afternoon, but has lately been 
entirely deserted for the card room. One of its most 
original frequenters when I first joined the club was 
old Sir Robert Peel, with his broad-brimtned tall hat 
perched at an extreme angle over one eye, his flowing 
cravat a la D' Or say, brick -red complexion, flashing 
brown eyes, tall and commanding appearance, and 
portentous frock coat. Thus attired one felt he could 
bluff the world. On one occasion he engaged 
in a game with- a youthful scion of Israel possessed 
of millions, recently elected to the club. The game 
was only for a fiver, but Sir Robert attached as much 
importance to it as though it had been for five 
hundred, and when his opponent fluked the red and 
made a twenty break off it, his comments were loud 
and long. Shortly after this the red again went in 
by accident, and again the Hebrew added some points 
to his score. This caused the brimming cup of 
Sir Robert's indignation to overflow. Stepping 
down from the bench upon which he had been 
sitting, with one hand thrust into the breast of his 
mighty garment, the other raised in the best House 
of Commons' manner, he proceeded to pulverize 
his unfortunate antagonist. I think he accused him 
of every known crime, in an ever- rising flow of 
impassioned indignation. His opponent, whom^ he had 
approached and fixed with those basiHsk eyes was a 
little sallow man, and he rapidly began to wilt under 



116 MERRY-GO-ROUND 

this treatment. He cast a piteous glance round the 
room, but no one made a move towards coming to 
the rescue. Then he looked at the door and suddenly 
reached a resolution. Muttering something about 
coming back directly, he rushed out of the room', and 
so far as I know, was never again seen in the club, 
from which he soon re5ign,ed. Sir Robert was 
triumphant on this occasion, and continued his oration 
to me and one or two others some timfe' after the 
dramatic departure. Certainly this was an ingenious 
way of winning a match and five pounds — for Sir Robert 
insisted on payment. 



CHAPTER VII 

FRANCE AND FISHING 

Sir Robert Peel and the Marquis of Clanrikarde — A Famous Jewel — 
Skating and Sliding — Frog- Fishing — Paris — " Throw in the Rod " — 
A Monster — Julian's Best Days. 

One of the most amusing spiectacles of those early- 
days was a passage at arms, upon a political or social 
subject, Ibetween Sir Robert and the Miarquis' of 
Clanrikarde. This wonderful old personage was in- 
troduced to me by our mutual friend, Charles Edward 
Jerningham, of whom I saw a great deal between 1895 
and 1 910. An introduction had to be effected with 
care, for Clanrikarde, so Jerningham told me, had once 
turned away from some aspirant for an introduction, 
shaking .his head and saying testily : "I don't want 
to know him, I don't want to know him," quite loudly 
enough for the unfortunate individual in question to 
hear, for he was lurking in the immediate neighbourhood. 
The encounter between Sir Robert and the Marquis 
generally began upon the question of dates. Sir 
Robert would say, grandiloquently waving an imtnense 
oratorical arm : " When I went out of office with Lord 
Derby in 1865," whereupon Clanrikarde, with steely 
blue cold eyes fixed upon his victim, would reimark 
in a sharp shrill voice, like the stab of a stiletto : 
" That's a remarkable statement, as Lord Derby was 
not in office at all at the time. You are out in your 
reckoning as tto dates by a dozen years or so. As 

117 



118 FRANCE AND FISHING 

to the facts, heaven knows how far out you are, — 
I'm sure you don't yourself." This would infuriate 
Sir Robert, who would rush forward to impale himself 
like a bull upon the points of Clanrikarde's memory 
which was amazingly accurate, and always ended by 
catching his opponent upon one horn or another of 
the dilemmas which he provided for Sir Robert, 
always more than a little hazy about his doings, both 
before and especially after luncheon, 

Clanrikarde's costume was as wonderful as himself, 
which is saying a good deal. I have often met himi 
on the steps of the Travellers' or the St. James's Club 
attired in a very seedy old black frock-coat bound 
with newish broad braid, which threw the greenish 
tinge of the main garment into high relief, and served 
partly to conceal his trousers, which are far better 
described by the word " bags," for they were more 
like a pair of sacks into which his bare limbs had been 
popped by some pitying coal heaver than the nether 
garmentls of ordinary humanity: He may have worn 
a shirt, but I never distinctly perceived one, and incline 
tio the belief that he economized in 'this article and 
made t!he under-vest do shirt duty. Blazing in the 
middle of a bedraggled patched necktie, which looked 
as if it had been made out of a rag from' some old 
bed-quilt past further service, was a splendid jewel — 
an Oriental ruby worth some thousands of pounds, 
surrounded by big brilliants of the finest water. His 
boots were unlike any footgear I ever saw, resembling 
derelict coal-boxes with lumps of coal protruding from! 
them, for they were full of bumfps,— hills and dales— 
and I never could' make out whether they were button- 
boots or lace -boots because, certainly one of them' had 
a but^tpn or two here and there, yet both were pierced 



MARQUIS OF CLANRIKARDE 119 

with eyeholes and' fastened with string (bootlaces run 
into money and need renewal every few years). The 
whole was crowned with a tall hat that had a peculiar 
gloss upon it, and was adorned with a broad band of 
silk running half-way up! its sides. 

This curious little figure was to be seen emerging 
from his rooms in the Albany about mid-day, and 
toddling down to one or another of his clubs where 
he would grumble over the price of provisions. His 
dinner was like certain Oriental manuscripts, beginning 
at the end and thence proceeding by way of bananas 
and ice-crealns towards the joint, and concluding with 
a plate of clear soup. He used often to explain to 
me that his method of dining gave the internal organs 
less trouble, as they were able to deal with the more 
difficult problems presented by the, sweets at the start, 
and found the quiet of the clear soup, at the conclusion, 
very comforting. Frequently, however, when provisions 
were scarce and dear, he would content himself for 
luncheon with the simple penny bun consumed on a 
bench in the Green Park, prior to dropping in at 
Christie's for a sale of blue china, of which ,he possessed 
a very fine collection. :One day, I 'remfember his' asking 
me if I took an interest in it, and on my replying in 
the affirmative, but regretting that I could never trust 
my eye, he put his hand into the tail-coat pocket of the 
garment described (where the buns were also kept) and 
produced a most beautiful Sevres saucer of the cele- 
brated turquoise blue. " I always take this saucer to 
sales," he said, " and compare it with the piece I am 
thinking of buying. Anything that approaches it is 
sure to be good." He also mentioned a sad occasion 
at Christie's when he had directed an agent to go 
on bidding for a piece of china until he drew out his 



120 FRANCE AND FISHING 

pocket handkerchief. The agei^t was standing^ facing 
him the other side of the table in a crowded room. 
The bidding started briskly, and the vase was soon 
over £ioo, which was Clanrikarde's intended -limit. He 
told me that it went to £350 before the hainmer fell, 
and the agent trotted round to say he had bought 
it for him ! The handkerchief had remained in place. 

[There were all sortis of tales current at one time 
as to Clanrikarde's being identical with the notorious 
money-lender Sanguinetti. Jemingham once told me 
lihat Clanrikarde had come up to him and said : "I 
hear they say I'm Sanguinetti, the money-lender. I 
don't mind them saying that in the least, but what 
does rather annoy me is that Sanguinetti is also going 
about saying that he's not the Marquis of Clanrikarde." 

I am not sure if Lord Lascelles, the lucky nephew, 
now possesses the celebrated jewel known as the 
Merman. This jewel has been once exhibited in 
London, and consists of a single pearl which, by a 
freak of Nature, is shaped exactly like the torso of an 
adult man, beautifully modelled. The Italian craftsman, 
some Leonardo da Vinci, added the splendid angry 
head of the sea-denizen with its golden curls and the 
curved tail of green enamel, with its pendant pearls 
and rubies. The whole produces a marvellous effect 
of completeness and vibrates with the life given to 
it by the artist. Years ago it was on the Uffizi collec- 
tion at Florence whence it mysteriously disappeared 
and was not heard of for many yea,rls, until, as 
Clanrikarde told me, and I have no reason to doubt 
his veracity, it turned up in India and was offered 
to Lord Canning, who was then Viceroy. He bought 
and kept it with two other treasures in a despatch-box, 
which came back with him when he returned to (this 



A FAMOUS JEWEL 121 

country. These were a jewel of astonishing beauty, 
known as the Emperor of China's seal, said to have 
excelled the Merman — and Queen Victoria's love-letters. 
The three were together in his despatch-box in Hanover 
Square when he was taken ill, and drove down to the 
seaside — I think it was Hastings., The box was handed 
to him in his carriage. He neven returned, and 
the Emperor's seal and the love-letters disappeared. 
Lady Waterford declared that he certainly had them 
with him at the time of his death. By the terms 
of Canning's will, Clanrikarde became the owner 
but was obliged to sell the jewel, which was bought 
back by his father and thus returned to his possession. 
He told me that Rothschild had offered him' up to 
£9,000 for the jewel, which he had refused, adding 
that he would not accept £10,000. One more reminis- 
cence of the jewel's adventures from his lips. He told 
me that on one occasion Lady Canning went to a 
drawing-room and by some inadvertence on the part 
of her coachman was put down at the ordinary entrance. 
Having no means of making herself known there she 
started on foot to find the entree entrance, but soon 
got lost in the crowd, where she was observed by a 
policeman, who came up to her and politely saluting 
asked if he should lead her to the entree entrance. She 
gratefully accepted and when they arrived there told 
him he mi^ht call in Hanover Square the next 
day, where there would be a little present awaiting 
him for his timely guidance. " Aind before we part, 
I should like to know how you guessed I was seeking 
the entree entrance? " " Oh, your ladyship, the moment 
I saw them pearls and rubies I knew you must have 
the entry." She was wearing the famous jewel. 
Clanrikarde had been, in early life, a diplomatist at 



122 FRANCE AND FISHING 

the Grand Ducal Court in Florence. He often held 
forth about Ireland and the way he liad been let down 
by the Conservative Government. He was bitter as to 
the treatment meted out to him' by the - late Lord 
Salisbury, who had, he said, always been prepared to 
sacrifice him to catch the popular vote. He gave me 
a minute account of interviews with other statesmen 
now living, to which it will perhaps be possible to refer 
in greater detail in the course of a few years, as they 
form an interesting commentary upon the state of 
Irish politics at the time. Clanrikarde had a good 
deal of wit, and was by no means devoid of humour. 
He was said to have always been snubbed by old Lady 
Cork, his sister, whom I met several times, but never 
heard say anything approaching' in interest the pungent 
epigrams and flowing stores of accurate knowledge of 
her brother. I never saw them together, but there 
must have been some psychical disequilibrium between 
the two, for Clanrikarde would have been excellent 
company in the most cultivated society. As to his 
Irish estates and the accusations of rack-renting, he 
told me that these estates had already been enormously 
reduced in rental when he inherited them, and that he 
was invited to make further enormious reductions upon 
these reductions. He said that he was determined not 
to be robbed, and that his tenants branded him as a 
merciless landlord because he refused to allow them 
to rob him. I have put his side of the case because 
one has always heard the other stated with imniense 
vehemence but lack of documentary support. " Give 
a dog a bad name " was certainly true of Clanrikarde, 
who, no doubt, was astonishly mean, andwould rather have 
died than have casually lent anyone a fiver, though he 
possessed over three million sterlingi, but I have always 



SKATING AND SLIDING 123 

heard that on great occasions he was capable of great 
things — that, for instance, he intervened to save his 
brother from bankruptcy, paying all his debts. He 
was a devotee of the old-fashioned figure skating, and 
very fond of m'arking out a few square yards for himself 
at Prince's skating rink, in which to practise his quaint 
little figures, circling round his top h'at. He very much 
objected to intruders upon these sacred precincts, and 
I remember on one occasion the testy old gentleman 

kept muttering " D n, d ^n," in a stage whisper 

every time Lady Randolph Churchill brushed past him. 
This went on for some time, when suddenly she swooped 
down upon him when he had one bulbous boot in the 
air and sent him flying in a sitting position along the 
ice. Facilis declmus Averni. 

But I must return for a few moments to that earlier 
period when I was learning French at Tours. We 
were a large party of young Englishmen at La Gruette, 
round Monsieur Cremiere's hospitable board. Mostly 
the aspirants for French speaking were younger than 
I, and they vied with one another in practising — the 
English language. With Henry Bell I made friends 
and together we explored the neighbourhood in search' 
of lepidoptera or played tennis at the Croizats', where 
the tricolor flag waved on one side of the net, the 
Union Jack on the other. Altogether a delightful time 
among the acacias and the vines, alive with sunlight 
and countless shades of green. There was also a 
terrace, with a view downward on the Loire. Here, 
on the long June evenings, we would stride up 
and down smoking cigarettes and discussing our plans 
for the future. George Crawley came out later, and 
joined me in a circular visit to the famous Chateaux, 
so much described of late years that I will not dwell 



124 FRANCE AND FISHING 

upon them here beyond' saying that I preferred the 
veiled seclusion of Azay-le-Rideau to thfe more splendid 
display of Blois, Amboise and Genonceaux. Crawley 
spoke quite good French, and I made my. first start 
in the language with him. But it was evident that 
I should not acquire the desired faclHty unless I went 
to some place where English was not spoken, for I 
found that I soon exhausted all common themes with 
amiable, obese Madame Cremiere and her peripatetic 
husband, who had seen so many generations of young 
Englishmen pass before his eyes and with all exchanged 
the like platitudes. He was constantly pottering about 
the garden and the vines in list slippers, sometimes 
with a watering pot, at others with a walking-stick jn 
his hand. His charming niece, Juliette, used to appear 
at meals, and sometimes it was possible to take a few 
first steps in Gallic compliments with her. I left them 
to follow the light. Delightful days and pleasant, 
homely, kindly people. How true it is that humanity 
never knows when it is well off. 

Being a " brother of the angle " I naturally looked 
round for a chance of luring the wary fin into the 
basket. The Loire, of course, presented opportunities, 
and of these I availed myself in moderation, for it 
was some distance from the house, and the sport, vi-'hen 
obtained, was rather of the negative than the positive 
sort — I mean there was a deal of waiting for a Iminimum 
of bites, which made me greet Jean Richepin's verse 
read in the sleepy punt, with much approval : — 

. . . le pecheur a la ligne 
Qui vit et meurt vierge et martyr. 

Virgin of fish we certainly often were, though our 
waiting in the comfortable recesses of the barge-like 



FROG-FISHING 125 

arrangement provided by the fishertmian did not amount 
to martyrdom. 

But during my visit to Azay-le-Rideau I made the 
discovery of a new kind of angling which I can 
heartily recommend to those in search of air, exercise 
and amusement. Strolling through a lush meadow in 
tlhe neighbourhood of that enchanted palace, I came 
upon a blouse-clad rustic armed with! a long and 
tapering hazel pole, intently gazing at the opposite side 
of a deep broad ditch'. He Was standing on the very 
edge, his clogs imbedded in loose -strife, marsh mallows, 
forget-me-nots, marigolds and clover. Willows over- 
grew the trickhng water, and countless twining grasses 
and branches almost entirely concealed it from' the view. 
One inferred its presence only from this rich variety 
of vegetable life that covered the slopes of the banks 
and ran right across from side to side. By peering 
between the boughs of willow and alder, it became 
possible, here and there, to detect a small space of 
water unconcealed. The rustic stood on the bank 
gazing at his bait, and I gazed at him. A slight 
motion agitated the point of his tapering pole. Suddenly 
he jerked it high in the air, and to my amazed 
amusement I observed that the bait was a piece 
of red flannel rolled into a ball, and the fish — a frog — 
at that moment flying through the air with the 
red flannel sticking to the minute teeth in his jaw. 
When it fell to the ground in the deep' 'green of the 
grass the shock jerked out the ball o!f flannel, and 
Master Grenouille, quite uninjured by his sudden 
flight skyward, started off full tilt for his native 
ditch. The rustic at once threw dowh his pole 
and bolted in pursuit — ^it was a grand handicap — 
and froggie's long-legged leaps were one too many 



126 FRANCE AND FISHING 

for the heavy wooden clogs of my friend ; that 
one got safe to cover, and there was no possibility of 
luring Ihim fort^ again. The only thing to be done 
was to move a few paces down the ditch and find 
another likely looking eye of water amid the herbs. 
This being achieved, I observed that the method is 
simple, and that it was genuine angling — a luring of 
the saurian to the basket, not a forcing him to enter 
it willy-nilly. And I observed, too, that there went 
considerable art and craft to the suctessful capture 
of the succulent vocalists — (spring chicken are not in 
it with Grenouilles a la mode de Touraiiie). The red 
flannel 'must be just the right size, neither too small 
nor too big, and it must further be properly, not too 
t|ightly nor too loosely, rolled. The string to which 
it is attached must be strong, because it often catches 
in bushes and needs some force to disentangle. Then 
there is a good deal of art in impartingi just the correct 
motion to the fascinating crimson mouthful. Froggie 
is easily alarmed too, and one mpst stand back from 
the precise place where the event is going to mature, 
or the prey will remain perdu among the sedges. 
Frequently in this kind of fishing, alone of all the kinds 
I have practised, one's victim inhabits the same element 
as oneself, and is seated comfortably on the bank when 
one approaches. He watches the amusing mjovements 
of the crimson circle for some moments before 
he decides to leap down into the water and swallow 
the lovely thing. This he does, not crudely and 
all in one, but boldly leaps to within about four inches 
and then approaches gradually (if the bait be properly 
agitated) before finally deciding to gulpi it down. 
When he does at last take it into his mouth one must 
give him comfortable time to get it well in, and select. 



PARIS 127 

for the supreme flight heavenward, the psychological 
moment when the minute roughnesses of the flannel 
are in contact with his minute teeth. Even when one 
thinks one has judged well he sometimes turns out 
to have imperfectly swallowed the bait, and consequently 
becomes detached from it when only a few feet from 
the bank. In that case even more rapid measures 
are jaecesisary, and the odds are heavily on the frog. 
I have often almost fallen down with laughing to 
observe the frantic plunge made by my friends after 
the elusive frogs, so frequently ending in the escape 
of the latter. I introduced the fashion of frog-fishing 
among the other young men at La .Gruette, and we 
would often be four or five at a few yards distance 
from one another. We generally brought home a good 
basketful after a morning's efi"orts. These are, of 
course, the edible frogs, larger than those little green 
beauties, the sybarites of the olives, that make the noise 
of an evening and live upon small flies. The advantage 
of this kind of fishing is that out of one capture ypu 
always get the excitement of two captures, and if you 
are imprudent enough to peep into the closed basket 
before delivering it in the kitchen you may quite well 
see your hard-won luncheon departing in all directions, 
with incredible celerity, to safle cover. On the whole, I 
place a good day with frog somewhere between lamprey 
and salmon fishing — it is more strenuous than either. 
Despite these fascinations I decided that I must go 
to Paris, and there complete the building of which the 
scaffolding only had been laid. In the Rue de la Sante, 
at the extreme end of the Boulevard St. Michel, I found 
what I required in the persons of Monsieur and Madame 
Bouchardot, a Protestant pasieur and his wife, who 
knew not a word of English. I must speak 



128 FRANCE AND FISHING 

French or starve. I started a translation of Sterne's 
Sentimental Journey into English, which was corrected 
by the pasteur,, I making rapid strides, and in the course 
of a few weeks was able to join in piy host's conversation 
with his wife and their friends, and had begun to read 
right and left in French literature, wisely accepting 
the suggestions of Monsieur Bouchardot and beginning 
with Racine and Moliere. I remember at this time 
also studying Fourier's Theorize des Quaire Mouvements 
and his notions of the phalanstery and the ideal life of 
share-and-share-ahke, which, when he wrote had not 
assumed the noxious form given to it by the Jew Marx. 
I completed my studies with a little harmless light 
exercise at the Bal Bullier, which was just round the 
corner, and gave me glimpses of the last of the Grisettes 
and of Parisian life that were rather surprising to one 
accustomed to the staider joys of Albion, From that 
date I have always kept in touch with France and with 
French literature, to which I owe so much. 

I returned by the Isle of Wight to England, land 
spent a few exquisite days at Shanklin, which has ever 
since been to me as a shrine. I have elsewhere given 
expression to its " tumbled wealth of green," and to the 
great sapphire eye of the sea as glimpsed through boughs 
swaying to the breeze of June and to the moments there, 
when Nature shrouds her face and squadrons of white 
rain come riding across the Chine. I can always " re- 
capture the rapture " by returning there, and this' I h!ave 
also been able to do with other less exquisite scenes.. 

That summer and autumn of 1886 I passed at 
Delgaty, where I caught a number of salmon in the 
Deveron, and did some shooting, but my brother JuUan, 
who followed me at Eton, has always been the expert 
in the latter branch of sport. 



"THROW IN THE ROD" 129 

My father was at one timie a keen salmt)n-fT(Sher, 
and had two remarkable advientures, the first at 
Laithers, where I have often fished. On the 
occasion in question, a big saknon was rising" close 
to him, in the late autumm, at the bottom' of 
the pool known as the Turning Wheel, which is 
backed by a steepi, wooded bank, and trees in places 
grow out over the water. One of these was just before 
him, as by a rare fluke his fly struck! the side of a 
rising fish as it was in the air, and caught hold. The 
fish made a bee line at a great pace down-streajni, 
the line tearing out of the reel as the fish reached the 
rapids about thirty yards below. My father held on 
as hard as he could without breaking the line, but 
nothing could stop the fish. He turned to Terras, 
his head-keeper, who Was just above him, and shouted : 
" Shall I throw in the rod? " Terras confirmed thei 
suggestion, and the heavy eighteen-foot rod disappeared 
in the calm, deep, foam-flecked water where the fish 
had been hooked. They then rushed down the bank 
to the rapids to see if there were any sign of the fish',; 
but nothing was visible ; for travelling the pace he was 
no doubt the rod had been before them. Over a hundreki 
yards of line was out when it was thrown in, and the 
fish must be in the pool beyond the rapids — the rod 
and reel might, of course, have stuck in a stone or 
been carried against the bank. They walked down 
to thfe pool below, known as Burn End, from a streami 
that flows into it further down. Its black, swirling 
waters burst over a rock at the further side and continued 
for quite a quarter of a mile without an intervening 
shallow. The case appeared hopeless : 

The waters wild closed o'er my child. 
And I was left lamenting. 
9 



130 FRANCE AND FISHING 

Sol they stood, rodless, surveying the scene of the dis- 
appearance, and were just turning; away to harness the 
dogcart and drive home when one of the Harveys, 
who own Carnousie, the property that faces Laithers 
on the other side of the river, appeared on- the opposite 
bank to fish., He was armed with some heavy tackle 
and leads to draw across the bottom and drag out 
any diseased fish there might be in the pool — and pre- 
sumably any others also ! Be this as it may, my 
father informed him that he had lost his rod and 
believed it to be lying at the bottoW of ,the pool. No 
doubt the fish had broken away long ago. Harvey 
thereupon made a cast across the stream with his bunch 
of big hooks, and at the third attempt said : "I feel 
your rod." Slowly, slowly he raised it to the surface : 
my father waded across the shallow above and joined 
him, joyfully gripping the dripping butt of green ash, 
which had passed through its ordeal unscratched. He 
wound up fifty yards or so of line, never suspecting 
for a moment that his fish would still be there, but 
what was his astonishment suddenly to feel it tugging 
away, and as fresh as if it had just been hooked. He 
landed it in twenty minutes ; weight about twenty 
pounds. 

Personally, I was never fort,unate in the Turning 
Wheel, but Stewart of Laithers told me that, on one 
occasion, he was fishing behind some of the big rocks 
which break its bubbling surface at the top of the 
pool. There he rose and " rugged " an immense fish 
lying in to the further side in com^Daratively shallow 
water. Vainly he tried again, and had just finished 
fishing the lower part of the pool when the youngest 
of the Harveys, a Cambridge blue and an athlete, 
appeared at the top to fish it from the Carnousie side. 



A MONSTER 131 

" I've ' rugged ' a monster at the top of the pool/' 
shouted " Laithers " to his friend : '' he won't look 
at me again, but perhaps he may be tempted from 
your side." He came and sat down opposite the place 
where he had risen the fish, while Harvey began at the 
very top and fished it carefully down to the critical 
cast. He was -" in " to something at once that felt 
exactly like the rock, which was just visible above the 
surface? Was it the rock? Harvey put on a heavy 
strain with his powerful rod, but there was no response 
from the other end. The line remained absolutely taut 
and tense. He held on like this for some Ininutes. 
" I doubt it's the rock," shouted Laithers to Carnousie 
with the faintest suspicion of a piscatorial chuckle. 
" No, I'm sure it's the fish," shouted back Carnousie : 
" it gave an unmistakable tug, but I can't move it. 
It must be tied to the rock." " Give line and go a 
little below him ; you're bound to move him' then." 
This manoeuvre was tried but proved absolutely in- 
effective : the monster kept his position without any 
apparent difficulty, and refused to budge an inch. For 
twenty minutes Harvey held on, and then became 
desperate. He decided that he would try to gaff the 
fish where it was. The wa,ter was not very deep. 
Winding up very carefully and keepingi thb full strain 
on the fish, he einitered the rapid stream' in which he 
just managed to keep a footing', with the rod in his 
left hand resting against his side, the gaff in his right. 
He proceeded thus about ten yards, and at last saw 
the dark outline of the salmon lying just below the 
rock in about five feeit of water. He himself was 
standing in over four feeti when he m!ade a long aim 
and got the iron of the gaff! over his back and into 
him'. Had he not* been in tip-top training, with muscles 



132 FRANCE AND FISHING 

like steel, he would never have dragged the great fish 
to the gravelly beach. It was all he could do in that 
rapid current, although a salmon is, of course, rendered 
practically helpless when the gaff is driven -well home. 
I have a photo of the fish, a clean- run salmon of 
forty-five pounds. 

My brother's feats in the way of game shooting are 
really surprising and at one time he was looked upon as 
the best shot in the north of Scotland ! He told me that 
his best day's pheasant shooting was at our neighbour's, 
Sir George Abercomby's, at Forglen House. On this 
occasion he shot seventy-seven high pheasants at one 
stand without a miss. Flight shooting at woodpigeons 
coming in to roost always amused m'e, but my own 
achievements were as nothing to his seventy-five, sixty- 
five and fifty-five by himself in a couple of hours on three 
successive Wednesdays at Craigston Castle, also within 
a walk of Delgaty. Here, in the tiny burn which 
runs past the ancient Castle, from which it is separated 
only by a gentle grassy slope, I remember as a little 
boy of nine coming over to fish with a worm^ for trout. 
Francis Pollard Urquhart kindly had the mill-water 
above turned on for us to darken the water and soon 
Ada, Leonora, Octavia Pollard Urquhart, my brother 
Percy and I were busily tossing yellow troutlings on 
to the soft, thick, velvety grass. I went alone down- 
stream below the bridge where we had been told the 
fishing was not so good. The water here ran darkly 
smooth and deeper between close banks. I cast jmy 
worm rather too near the opposite bank as I thought, 
and feared it would catch in the meadow-sweet and 
other herbage which over-arched the currents. I 
almost jerked it out and made another cast. It stopped 
travelling down-stream. I struck. Was it in the roots 




f 

.p 




WAITING FOR A WOODCOCK. 

Julian Ainslie, the author's younger brother. 



JULIAN'S BEST DAYS 133 

of a plant? It felt Hkei it. Yet no, there was too heavy 
a tug, when I pulled^ toi bp a, submergjed' weed. I had 
never felt anything like it before. Suddenly all my 
doubts were dispelled by the line darting down-stream 
like an arrow. 1 rushed after it with hasty steps 
through the long", high grasses, which had not been 
cut in this portion of the stream where we were not 
expected to fish. Suddenly it turned the other way 
and went up-stream with equal rapidity. Thus up and 
down it coursed with the little boy after it, panting 
with excitement and shouting for all he was worth. 
But at first no one heard him : the party had adjourned 
to the Castle for tea. , At last, however, a woodcutter 
in a neighbouring: thicket emerged and came to the 
rescue with a landing-net which he ran to secure at 
the house. I had seen nothing of the fish, though (a 
more expert angler would have certainly done so. He 
kept boring along* on the very bottom. The woodcutter 
was certainly very adroit, for he quickly slipped the 
net under him and hoisted out what appeared to my 
enraptured eyes to: bie a monster. He turned the scale 
at just under three pounds, and I shall always 
remember the pathetic remark of the keeper Will, that 
he had fished the burn for twenty years and more 
without making such a capture and now a youngi 
gentleman had come and caught the triton. I was 
filled and thrilled with pride. 

To revert for a moment to my brother JuUan, his 
best day's general shootiiigl was in Norfolk, when he 
rented Congham Hall, and with four other gtms got 
" 470 pheasants, 170 brace of partridges and a" lot 
of duck and teal." 

iWe had at one time a delightful neighbour, Mr. 
Bacon, an American, connected, I believe, with the 



134 FRANCE AND FISHING 

Vanderbilt family. The story runs that soon after he 
had rented Netherdale on the Deveron, the keeper 
wrote in the spring to New York, where he was 
detained on business, to ask if they should try for 
salmon in his absence. " No," he is said to have 
cabled in reply, " keep salmon till I return in the 
autumn." That was in the early days, but he soon 
learnt salmon lore and his hospitality knew no bounds. 
To dwell a few further moments on sport, my 
brother tells me that the most comical experience he 
remembers was at a cov^ert shoot at Mountblairy, years 
ago, when a beater was accidentally hit in the face. He 
was rather badly hurt and my brother, iwho, had not fired, 
was doing what he could for him, when the head- 
keeper came up full of the cares of the day. He 
looked at the man lying on the grass, and' said : " Oh ! 
fire-shot are ye? Aweel ! Awa back tae ma hoose 
and wash yer face, and come back as quick as ye 
can " — and the man did it ! I hasten to add that the 
victim was none the worse for the mishap, and was 
duly rewarded by the pepperer. Reckless shooting 
is the abomination of desolation in sport. 



CHAPTER VIII 
DANCING AND DUCKING 

The Old Lord Fife — Scoones and Diplomacy — Sam Lewis Gambling — Reel 
Dancing in Scotland — Society m excelsis — " Ball Dancing — Embassy 
Ball at Rome— Orloff— The Ducking of the Princess— The Tears of 
Poland — Pageant in excelsis. 

In East Aberdeenshire we suffered considerably at one 
time from this affliction in the shape of a neighbour 
(now dead) who was a popular and agreeable man, 
and had commanded a regiment with distinction in 
earher life. He is said to have been the only man 
who had shot another in the soles of his feet. He 
achieved this distinction by telling the keeper at a 
rabbit-shoot that he had wounded a rabbit which had 
crawled into a hole close by. While the keeper ;was 
lying flat on the ground with his arm down the hole 
trying to reach the rabbit, another rabbit appeared and 
made for the same refuge. The Colonel immediately 
fired both barrels at it, with the result above mentioned. 
On one occasion, at his own shoot, he proved 
himself so dangerous in the morning that his guests 
declined to come out after lunch to shoot the rabbit 
warren. They finally relented after the Colonel had 
given a solemn promise that he would remain on the 
other side of a substantial wall. They made a start, 
but were soon appalled to find that shot was 
mysteriously coming in all directions into the line of 
guns and beaters. It was then discovered that the 
Colonel was walking along' the top of the wall shooting 

135 



136 DANCING AND DUCKING 

indiscriiminately at all that moved. He once remarked' 
at a shoot that he had been fortunate enough to kill 
a right and left of roe-d^eer. At the pick-up i't was found 
that what he had really killed was one ro£-deer land 
his host's brown retriever. 

ThiC old Lord Fife of an earlier gjeneration, whom! 
I have already mentioned in relation to his whisky and 
his wig, was also reputed to have been apt to discharge 
his right barrel at anything moving. On one occasion 
the object in question happened to be a beater's yellow 
gaiter. His lordship aimed straight at what he believed 
to be the yellow rabbity and bowled it over in the 
dense fern, givingi it as he remarked, the other barrel 
" to put it out of its misery " when he observed that 
the undergrowth continued to be violently agitated. 

'' Adventures arie to the adventurous " is one of the 
truest of saws and when I returned to London, after 
visiting my parents in Aberdeenshire, I set out on 
several. The first of these was the frequentation of 
Scoones's cramming establishtnent for the Diplomatic 
Service. It was in Garri'ck Street, and B. Scoones, the 
manager, proprietor and presidingt genius, was a most 
amiable and delightful man. Bright dark eyes in a 
sallow face sparkled with life and intelligence as he 
stood before one of the grates of his many lecture- 
rooms and instructed some thirty young gentlemen 
how they should all obtain the five or six 
vacancies likely to become available in that career. 
Heads I win, tails I don't lose, might be said 
of the excellent Scoones and his establishment : he 
did but profit legitimately by the ludicrous system 
of so-called " competition " examination by nomination 
for the Diplomatic Service. We were all kept on 
tenterhooks prior to an examination as to whether we 



THE LATE LORD SALISBURY 137 

should receive " nominations " or not. These were really 
all in the gift of the Hon. Eric Barrington, private 
secretary to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 
at that time the late Lord Salisbury. Of the latter, many 
are the stories current as to his immense capacity for 
failing to recognize even those with whom he was in daily 
contact. Thus he is reported to have asked on one occa- 
sion who was the " rather agreeable " young man who 
had twice brought dispatches to Hatfield for signature. 
At first there was some doubt as to who this migiht 
be, but eventually it was discovered that my old friend, 
Henry Foley, one of the junior secretaries, was thd 
person in question. .He had been in attendance on 
his Lordship for two years. 

But funnier than this (though I fear that to some 
this anecdote may be a marron glace) is the descrip- 
tion of that day when a neighbouring squire dropped 
in to luncheon. Lady Salisbury was rather apprehensive 
that her husband might fail to recogtiize this somewhat 
obscure person, and was greatly relieved to find when 
Lord SaUsbury entered the dining-room a little later 
that he immediately engaged their homespun guest in 
conversation, which he kept up vigorously till the end 
of the repast, when the squire rather hastily took his 
leave. Lord Salisbury then casually remarked : " I "was 
glad Lord Roberts dropped in to luncheon to-day ; but 
I fear he is not what he was intellectually. He 
appeared to me to be remarkably vague as to our 
military dispositions in Egypt, and his views on Indian 
questions seemed even more nebulous. But we all grow 
older." il believe that it was thought advisable not 
to disillusionize him as to the identity of his late guest. 

These anecdotes are no doubt founded upon an 
inattention to the externals of daily intercourse on the 



138 DANCING AND DUCKING 

part of Salisbury^, but that he was well aware of the 
main point came under my own direct observation when 
I was on the late Sir Edmund Monson's staff at Athens. 
Sir Edmund was an amiable Chief, though his habit of 
perpetually quill driving with a quill that did not rtm 
but galloped across the foolscap, kept us all too 
busy in the Chancellery on many a balmy after- 
noon. Sir Edmund was far more interested in Greek 
politics than was Lord Salisbury, and he would often 
metaphorically wring his hands and tear his hair over 
the apathy displayed by the Secretary of State towards 
the iniquities of Delyannis and the manoeuvres of 
Tricoupis. But when real trouble began to brew, and 
a Graeco-Turkish war was threatened, telegrams came 
pouring in from the previously apathetic Secretary of 
State, who was doubtless well aware of Sir Edmund's 
quill -driving propensities. 

I have always admired and wished I dared to 
emulate that trait , in the late Lord Salisbury of 
ignoring all club bills. Years ago I was a member 
of the Junior Carlton Club, and when the 
Senior opposite was closed Lord Salisbury used occa- 
sionally to honour us with his presence at luncheon 
at the Junior. He used always to stalk majestically 
away when he had finished as though he were in 'his 
private house and the steward never dai^ed present him 
with the bills, which used to accumulate until they 
were paid off in a bunch by his secretary. A delightful 
reUc of days when no club servant would present a 
tray of silver change until the silver had been washed. 
Conceive a trayful of well-washed Bradburys. That 
pulp exactly represents our present democracy as 
compared with the clear-cut coin of the past. 

To return to the diplomatic examination and the 



FRIENDSHIP WITH THE SECRETARY 139 

arbiter of the nominations, we naturally all paid court 
to Eric Barrington so far as we were able : the rooms 
at Scoones's re-echoed with : " Eric has asked me 
to lunch," or " I saw Eric in Pall Mall, yesterday," 
from the lips of those whom he was supposed especially 
to favour, I think Barrington did his best to make 
a pint bottle contain a magnum — certainly there were 
a good many nominations for each examination, but 
the way adopted for those who were particularly 
wanted by the Foreign Office was to fix an examination 
suddenly for a particular date so selected as to suit 
the favoured candidates and to exclude any dangerous 
competitors who were permitted to cut one another's 
throats on a later occasion. Another favourite dodge 
was to carry the name of the desired one right to the 
top of those who had failed to obtain a place in a 
competition — say make 'him come out fifth where there 
were four vacancies — then when a fifth vacancy 
occurred the pet was popped into it without more ado. 
Other devices were also adopted Tor increasing the 
chances of certain candidates. Thus I remember, when 
I was at Scoones's, that just before an examination 
Sir Augustus Paget, Ambassador at Vienna, whose son 
was a fine German scholar, wrote to the Foreign Office 
to say that 300 marks was not, in his opinion, sufficient 
for German. A couple of hundred marks were at once 
added to that subject. 

The same sort of thing went on for years under the 
successors of Eric Barrington : it was a question of 
paying successful court to the private secretary of the 
Secretary of State, not only for " nominations," but also 
for posts when in the Service. My father belonged to the 
golden spoon-fed days before the competition for nomina- 
tions of unspeakably worthy people connected with Radi- 



140 DANCING AND DUCKING 

cal M.P.'s. They had merely to prove they knew French 
and German and could write a dispatch in those days. 
The governing class throughout Europe — socially there 
was no other Continent — understood one another a demi 
mot and " ran the show " to perfection. Prior to the 
age of those born with the golden spoon in their 
mouths was that of those qui se donnalent la peine de 
nditre — cardinals in toddling clothes. As Clanrikarde 
used to whisper to me, with his wonderful boots resting 
on the rim of the fender in the silence room at the 
St. James's Club : " The mischief was done at the 
time of the French Revolution : a little firmness then 
and we should have been in the saddle for many 
generations. Now nothing can stop the landslide." 
iWill the soft-handed horny-headed sons of soil led 
by Mr. Clynes provide a happier world? Very possibly 
— for the Clynes' family and friends, but not for humanity 
as a whole. They will be dreadfully expensive. iWe 
shall return bankrupt to a benevolent tyranny by a 
very long and a very weary road. ' 

Studies at Scoones's fully occupied our time during 
the day, but youth is rich in vitality and some of us 
broke away to found a Bohemian Club combining with 
others less afflicted with examinations. This club was 
the Corinthian in York Street, St. James's Square, on 
the left as you enter the Square, and I still possess the 
certificate of my foam.der's share, duly countersigned by 
old John Hollingshead of the Gaiety. HoUing'shead 
was a great ally of George Edw'ardes^ — Gaiety George — 
and the level of culture attained by the latter caterer, 
for the public taste may be gauged by a delightful 
remark he once made in my hearing. It was 
at a supper-party at Romano's that some one began 
talking about Shakespeare, a subject which had' 



ISADORA DUNCAN 141 

few attractions for Edwardes, who listened, rather 
sleepily, until the remark was made : " I'ra sure one 
could find it in Holinshed." Edwardes at once woke 
up with : " Lordy, I never knew old John had any 
truck with Shakespeare." Edwardes was a very 
pleasant person to meet if you were on the side 
of the knife handle, as I have heard Russians put the 
possession of the pull, but the other face of the metal 
was not so pleasinig. His true personality is exactly 
hit off with the French faux honhomme. Certainly 
he could be most agreeable when it suited his book 
and there was lai good slice of ca,ke foir himself and, of 
course, we young men found it very useful to be friends 
with the manager of the Gaiety, and even with his 
myrmidons, Pallant and others, who qould speak the 
Open Sesame that let us past the Cei'berus of the 
stage-door. I remember in this connection a story 
that makes me smile as I write it, of how I intro- 
duced the fair Isadora Duncan to a dear old hunting 
friend (long dead). He promptly became enamoured 
of the Terpischore of California, and followed exactly 
the correct tradition by driving upi the following night 
to the stage-door with an immense bouquet. Un- 
accustomed to the ways of theatres, he pushed past 
the stage-doorkeeper's box before the latter had time 
to ask him whom he wanted. He began wandering 
hopelessly about the wings in search of her dressing- 
room and at last ran against the Cerberus, who 
had pursued but lost him in the intricacies of a forest 
of scenes and stage accessories. Then ensued an epic 
duel of words which very nearly ended in blows, the 
man rudely shouting to the intruder to come back, the 
intruder damning his eyes and continuing" his search, 
followed by the infuriated stage-doorkeepjer. Finally 



142 DANCING AND DUCKING 

my friend said : " Nothing will make me leave 
this theatre until' I have handed my bouquet to 
Miss Isadora Duncan." " She's not here," shouted 
the man with desperate calm : " Come along out 
of this." " She is here and I shall find her,"- 
repUed my friend. " She asked me to call to-night 
at the Lyceum and ask for her." " But ihis atnt the 
Lyceum — ^it's the Gaiety ; the Lyceum's just opposite. 
If you hadn't a rushed past me like that you'd have 
saved us both a deal of trouble," shouted the Cerberus, 
who recovered his temper when he found the laugh 
was on his side. My friend joined in it and tipped 
him a sovereign, which led Cerberus to add in 
gratitude : " You may come 'ere and look for Miss 
Duncan at that price any night of the week you Hke, 
and if so be you can't find 'er, maybe you'll find another 
to suit you — we sort o' specializes in 'em 'ere ye know*." 
The Corinthian Club formed a delightful place of 
meeting when it was first started : there was a 
magnificent ballroom with a balcony overlooking it and 
a cosy lounge behind that, a dining-room on the other 
side of the entrance hall. We had a capital private^ 
band, and in the afternoons and evenings it was very 
gay. Albert Osborne, A. H. E. Grahame, Victor 
Morier, Talbot and Cuthbert Clifton, Leslie Melville and 
many other friends and acquaintances, mostly of Eton, 
Harrow, Oxford or Cambridge formed a nucleus round 
which gathered most of the youngi men from eighteen 
to the early twenties. The ladies were recruited chiefly 
from the Gaiety and other theatres of that sort. They 
were much more Bohemian and far less pretentious in 
some respects than the tniddle-class chorus ladies of 
to-day. There was, of course, a great deal of money 
spent, chiefly by those who did not possess any. This 



SAM LEWIS 143 

paradox was explained by the near neighbourhood 
of Sam Lewis, whose offices were almost opposite the 
Bristol Restaurant (since fallen from its high estate). 
Sam had a cheerful, jovial personality and used 
frequently to remark setni-patemally : "I like to see 
the young 'uns have a good time." He was reputed! 
(truly, I have no doubt) to do im!mensie deals with 
Continental magnates in need of cash, but he did not 
disdain even younger sons, who might (who can tell?) 
succeed to thousands any day. To these he would 
often advance a monkey or so on their simple sig- 
natures. He would even lend small sums of money 
to young men in good regiments who would go back 
and extol his generosity at mess, and thus perhaps 
lead some of their wealthier brother officers into his 
net. Sam was a capital raconteur and I have often 
thought what a wonderful secret history of London 
in the 'eighties and 'nineties he and the solicitor, Georgfe 
Lewis, might have compiled. Between them they must 
have known all the secrets. Of course such a history 
would be impossible and both these — experts — were 
honourable men. Sam was an habitue of Monte Carlo, 
where he lost many of the thousands he made in 
London. One day the chep de partie at trente et 
guar ante objected to Sam's putting his feet on one 
chair while he sat on another, whereupon Sam came 
out in the best Cockniey with : "I've paid ye over a 
'undred thousand to 'ave the right to put my feet lon 
this blasted chair and I'm ruddy well going to do it." 
Lord Frederick Hamilton, in one of his interesting 
volumes, describes the young men of his day as 
wearing the " colours " of the lady of their heart in 
the stalls of the Gaiety, and that one young man pushed 
his infatuation for Miss Duncan (black and white) to 



144 DANCING AND DUCKING 

the extent of having black and white tkid gloves made for 
the purpose at the theatre. We of a later date never, 
went to those extremes of dress, though a good many- 
people got very much into debt for the sake of their 
Twinkle Toes (to borrow my friend Burke's pretty title 
for his admirable study). Some of the Twinkle Toes were 
worth it, and I remember one of them, Lydia Manton, 
a charming little sapphire-eyed brunette, who took her 
own life because the man she liked had left her in 
order to marry. 

There were other Bohemian resorts of the time which 
we occasionally patronized, such as the Gardenia in 
Leicester Square, a long, low-roofed floor with supper- 
room above. Here the company of both sexes 
was much more mixed, and though the fun was fast 
and furious, the early mornings spfent there inclined 
one to return to the more civilized Corinthians, or to 
Evan's — now the National Sporting Club. This was 
a charming resort during^ the few years of its existence. 
The same class as frequented the Corinthians came 
here : light-hearted Bohemian maidens, who were out 
for a good time without much afterthought. It w!as a 
club, and most of us belonged to both. I was not one 
of the founders of Evans's : it was generally said to be 
run by the old Duke of Beaufort. At any rate, he 
was there every evening with Miss Connie Gilchrist 
and glad to introduce her to young* men who could 
dance well. Evan's afterwards became the New Club, 
and I have also attended the Caledonian Ball there. 
Indeed, I think that was thfe only occasion I ever wore 
the kilt south of the Tweed. Our family being Grant 
Duff, we have the right to wear both the Grant land 
the Duff tartans. Personally I affect the former. The 
tartans of the clans are, by many, supposed to represent 



CALEDONIA DANCES 145 

primordial antiquity in costume, but modern research 
has, I believe, proved that their origin cannot be traced 
very far back. In the old days, when the Highlands 
were mostly within what were called the "Rough 
Bounds," communications were difficult and the com- 
plicated patterns displayed in many tartans would have 
been impossible to execute for lack of dyes, A reel 
danced out of the kilts seems a prosaic enough affair 
to the onlooker, but it's pleasure taken in grim earnest 
for the Celt. Many years ago, at Delgaty, during 
a ball given after the bigl covert-shoot, I remember 
some unfortunate Sassenach engaging himself in the 
mazes of the ileel without a sufficiently close acquain- 
tance with the correct way of changing arms when 
the men dance together in the centre and the ladies 
look on. He managed to scrapte, somehow, through the 
slow time, but when the quick time began with the 
usual shouting and the spirit of ecstatic revel as High- 
landers — Lords of Creation — had entered the souls of the 
dancers, he kept continually giving the wrong arm to 
the other man and getting in his way at the critical 
moment. At last this became too much to bear', and 
the Scot in question took hold of the peccant stranger 
round the waist and hurled him to the side of the 
room', with the recommlendation to bide in yon easy 
chair and keep out of the reel ! The Scot then took 
up his dancing and went through the quick time then 
in the centre alone to his own satisfaction, thougih to 
the amazement of the partner of his vis-d-vis, who 
remained a disconsolate figfure until rejoined by a sadder 
and a wiser man. 

These anecdotes and happenings may appear to have 
but little connection with the great happening" of the 
examination to enter the Diplotnatic Service, nor indeed 

10 



146 DANCING AND DUCKING 

have they, save that they were events taking place at 
about the same time and are to my mind less tiresoni;e 
than the chronicling of crammed French and card 
indexes, which filled the other part of my life for some 
years. I did not get my nomination for diplomacy until 

I was twenty-four. 

I shall therefore make no scruple of diverging' from 
the macadam of examination to the Adams — and Eves — 
of the ballroom. We, of course, received plenty of 
social invitations during this period in London. Young' 
men are always in request at dances, and we were 
well aware of the fact. Dancing was not the fashion 
in the early 'nineties as it is now. We never thought 
of dancing in the afternoon, and if we did go to a ball 
in Society I am afraid that most of us went after 

I I p.m. with an eye to supper, after perhaps a turn 
or two in the ballroom. That we did not care much 
for dancing at that time is not surprising", seeing that 
most of us had but rudimentary ideas of the art and 
believed that all was done when we had hauled our 
partners round the room', more or less in time, to the 
tune of waltz or polka. Reversing, and all kinds of 
" American tricks," were looked upon as bad form' 
as tlhey were likely to impede the progress of those 
who were less dexterous at getting round without too 
much bumping into people. Then I' fear that the 
happy-go-lucky attractions of Bohemia made even the 
slight restrictions of Society ballrooms irksomie. What 
one was practically free of at the time I first began 
to go about London was the type of man who " ought 
not to have been asked," as being outside the pale of 
Society or of Bohemia, which w'as as exclusive in 
its own way as Society as regards the men who 
frequented it. Nowadays, I constantly hear that 



BRITISH NO MASKERS 147 

altogether undesirable men have been brought to the 
best houses by women in Society who ought to know 
better, and indeed do know better, but being unable 
to obtain the genuine article accept the other rather 
than go without. Any one at all doubtful used to be 
extremely well looked after and sharply criticized and 
kept in order, whereas now there are too many of 
them — ^the social level has declined with the advent 
of the democracy which has risen above its former 
level. The memoirs of older men and women who 
I have met make it clear that, before my time, 
both Society and Upper Bohemia were m.uch more 
strictly guarded than , when I first knew them : now 
it is the Deluge. 

The splendid paying fancy balls of to-day were not 
known in the 'eighties and 'nineties, at least, on any- 
thing like the scale. iWe British are in any case not very 
good at manoeuvring in masks, and I remember, at a 
private masked ball given at Holland House, a good 
many years ago, that a woman I knew who had been 
to masked balls abroad and understood the art of 
accosting and intriguing other masks, was severely 
snubbed by several of the men and women whom she 
addressed, and either knew personally or knew all 
about. It was absurd to object to her doings this, as 
no one could have obtained an entrance uninvited, as 
all the masks had to be doffed a moment for private 
inspection on arrival. The reason why the mask is 
not popular with us is that although people are willing 
to dress up in something becoming or moderately 
bizarre, they always wish to remain themselves and 
resent conversing with any one not on their visiting 
Hst. 

By far the finest masked and fancy balls that I have 



148 DANCING AND DUCKING 

attended have been abroad ; the most beautiful was 
given by our representative at Rome, my friends, Sir 
Rennel and Lady Rodd, the next most beautiful at Paris, 
by the Princesse de Leon. Both eclipsed. in artistic 
merit the stately magnificence of the Devonshire House 
fancy ball, the reason beinjg this — ^at Devonshire House 
nearly everyone was British and therefore not naturally 
artistic, whereas in Rome three-quarters were Italians 
to the manner born in matters of art, and in Paris, 
at the Princesse 's, I suppose that not half a dozen 
British were asked : the French wiere the cream of the 
Faubourg St. Germain, with a sprinkling' of a few 
foreign diplomatists. 

Both at the Rodds' and at the Princesse de Leon's, 
those who were invited had regularly to rehearse their 
entry for some weeks before the event — the ball was 
frequently postponed, and some of the Italians were 
said to have rehearsed for a whole year ! If they did 
not rehearse they certainly conversed sufficiently about 
it, for I heard a new story every day. I wore, on that 
occasion, a magnificent Chinese Prince's marriage robe 
of coral-coloured watered silk, heavily embroidered 
with great golden dragons clambering in five-clawed 
imperial splendour all over my back. On my head 
a sort of papal tiara of Oriental pearls, in my hand 
a painted fan, and round my neck a string of emerald- 
jade beads. My feet were encased in black satin turn- 
up slippers and my stockings of white silk were scarcely 
visible, as the robe descended to Tcty heels. I acquired 
this latter magnificence from! my old friend. Sir Herbert 
Dering, now British Minister at Sofia, on his return 
from Pekin. He was in command of the Embassy 
forces during the Boxer Rebellion, and no doubt it 
was due to his coolness of head and able disposition 



THE GREATEST FANCY BALL 149 

of our tiny forces that we won through as w,ell as we 
did. The first occasion on which I had worn this 
robe was at the painter's, Walter Crane's, where it com- 
pletely eclipsed all other costumes at a fancy dress 
party, whereas it was merely a single gem in the 
splendour of the Embassy ball. I remember at the 
Crane's, where I found Harrington Mann, Charles 
Shannon, Jamies Pryde, and a/ number of other delightful 
friends among the painters, the joke was to come up 
to me and say : " My dear Ainslie, I'm so glad to 
see you, but I wish you'd be kind enough to turn 
your back on me." They were buzzing like bees in 
admiration of my back — not very flattering to the other 
side, as I vainly explained. 

The Rodds' fancy ball was fuUy described in the 
Italian, British and American Press at the time, and 
surely there has never been anything to equal it else- 
where. The greatest ItaHan families were practically 
all represented, and vied' with' one another in the 
splendour of the imaginative setting which they gave 
to the material gorgeousness of costumes and jewels. 
Many, not merely some of the women shone as though 
they were shrines, so covered and canopied were they, 
with priceless heirlooms in diamond, pearl, ruby, 
emerald, opal and sapphire. I remember, rather late 
in the evening, offering an arm to an exquisite httle 
Sicilian, whose head-dress seemed to be on fire with 
the blazing light of precious stones in tiara and coronet. 
Her first remark was : " My head is aching with 
rubies and diamonds. Give me some lemonade." A 
connoisseur in such matters told me that she had, on 
her head alone, far more than two millions of francs 
worth of jewels (about £50,000), and as her dress 
was also resplendent in the same manner the total must 



150 DANCING AND DUCKING 

have been somethinig fabulous. Yet the whole effect 
was perfect. Good taste can ally itself with magnifi- 
cence as well as with moderation, for both are art. I 
relmember that there .had to be a guard of police to. 
protect the ladies of this famous ball when we went 
to the Argentina theatre to be photographed afterwards. 
But the crowds were quite harmless after all. 

Both here and at the Princesse de Leon's one did 
not enter the ballroom in the ordinary way, but formed 
part of a group or compagnie as the Parisians called 
it. I shall always remember my own black and silver 
Henri II costume at the latter ball, with its trunk 
hose, which felt very cold as one was waiting in the 
hall for the carriage, in the early hours of the morning ! 
I was then staying with my friend. Prince Alexis 
Orloff, in the Rue St. Dominique, who exercised his 
diplomatic privilege and wejit in the magnificent white 
uniform of the Imperial Guard. " Pouf," as he was 
called, seemed at first merely fat and good-natured, 
but in reality he had inherited plenty of intelligence 
from his father, the celebrated Russian Ambassador to 
Paris. He was one of the very few Russians of tny 
acquaintance who had the intuition of the approaching 
avalanche in Russia, and removed the greater part of 
his very large fortune to France and I believe also to 
England, in 191 3. "Pouf" had the greatest admira- 
tion for Englishmen, although he did not like London 
— he talked English with a cockney accent — or Eng- 
land. He was a regular sybarite and rarely left the 
charmed circle of the Rue St. Dominique or the 
Riviera, where he used always to take a large house 
and import an army of servants. He used to say 
that the English alone did not flatter or try to obtain 
favours. I used frequently to run over and stay a few 



"POUF" AND THE PRINCESSE 151 

days with him while I was " reading for diplomacy " : 
it was like entering fairyland, so remote from London 
lodgings were those spacious rooms, heavy with scent 
burned on a brazier, and a white-statued fountain- 
tinkling garden opening out from the great red silk 
dining-room and Hbrary, with its reassuring* rows of 
diplomatic histories and other decorous tomes, which 
I fear endured many frivolous conversations. For 
" Pouf " was very fond of the Parisienne da monde 
— he did not care for the cabotines—" filles de 
concierge" he called them. He gave most amusing 
little luncheons and dinners, ending often in some wild 
prank. I remember, being the only non-Russian at a 
luncheon-party, after which the ladies actually ducked 
a disagreeable old Princesse Gahtzine in the lovely 
marble fountain in the garden, sparkling" that after- 
noon in May in all its beauty. They disliked her for 
some reason I never could clearly make out. It was a 
question of total immersion carried out with great 
rapidity after much discussion in their own language 
which, alas, I understand so imperfectly, although my 
mother speaks it like a Russian. The Princesse was 
in and out before I could protest, and I must confess 
that I could not help laughing when she appeared 
wigless, dripping like a water-rat and spluttering with 
mud and rage. She was, however, none the worse for 
this post-prandial baptism — certainly not her tongue — 
but that would have been impossible. 

The Galitzin family is very numerous in Russia, and 
as all the sons and daughters of a prince were respec- 
tively prince or princess, the story runs that on one 
occasion a princely member of the clan was stopped 
at a toll-gate and asked for ten kopecks. He felt his 
pockets and found' that he had forgotten his purse. 



152 DANCING AND DUCKING 

He decided to oblige the toll-keepier to let him pass by- 
letting fly the splendour of his patronymic. " I am the 
Prince Galitzin : I have forgotten my purse ; let me 
pass and I Will pay you double when I return," " IVe 
heard that story before," said the toll-keeper, " and as 
to your being Prince GaMtzin, for that matter, so am 
I : but you must pay the money now all the same." 

The Orloffs are descended from the famous lover 
of the Empress Catherine, celebrated by Byron. The 
coup d'etat which placed her on the throne has been 
marvellously described by a former ambassador to 
St. Petersburg, Count Roederer. I possess a copy 
of this masterpiece in little — for the whole is con- 
tained in fifty moderate-sized pages of print. Some 
day I shall translate it. He gives an extraordinai^ 
vivid picture of the Empress driving into St. Petersburg 
with her lover and her hairdresser seated opposite to 
her in the carriage, quite uncertain as to whether she 
was to be put to death immediately or to be received 
by the army with acclamation. The latter turned out 
to be the case. Roederer used to tell the story of his 
embassy in the eighteenth century salons of Paris after 
he had retired from diplomacy. It used to be the 
fashion for fair hostesses to beg him to do so. As he 
grew old, his friends begged him! to write down the 
narrative, which we possess, as he used to tell it and 
as it came from his pen. The Russian Government did 
its best to obtain the suppression of this document 
by bringing pressure to bear upon the French Govern- 
ment, but fortunately for us the book was already 
in type and in a good many hands. It is little known 
in France and less with us. 

To return for a moment to the Costume ball lat 
Rome, I have said that we entered in companies there 



CONTESSA CASERTA 153 

and at the Princesse de Leon's. The entrances of the 
Comedie Frangaise at the Princesse de Leon's, followed 
by the Comedie Italienne, were exceedingly brilliant, 
only partly owing to the costumes. The acting was 
for fully a half in the buoyantly joyous effect of the 
ensemble. Perhaps the Rodd's Ball was a little less 
hilarious than the L^on ball, but it was incomparably 
more tnagnificent, and the acting was beautiful there 
also owing to the large number of Italians present — 
and Italians simply do anything artistic naturally. 
" Toute Vltalie hlazonnee Halt Id" one might say in 
the words that Theophile Gautier applied to one of 
the books of Hugo's, Legende des Siecles. 

At this distance of time, names of individuals might 
be expected to fade, but they are all as vividly before 
the memory now as when I strode solemnly along^ 
followed by my friends Count de la Feld, Carlo 
Placci and other temporary Chinese mandarins — pre- 
eminence went rather by robe than by rank — we grave 
and reverend Signors being atltended by a bevy of 
the fairest among the maidens who danced decorously 
and lightly along in contrast to the measured tread of 
the mandarins. Imtnediately ahead of us was the 
Golden Folly of the Contessa Caserta, clad entirely 
in a robe of gold upon gold, embroidered and 
decorated all with loops and festoons of the precious 
metal. Her crown of gold relaxed its severity only 
to admit a few rubies and to permit her wealth of 
gilded curls to fall upon her golden shoulders. She 
held a golden orb' in oniei hand, a sceptre in the other, 
and was followed by a train of lovers, whose bodies 
were covered entirely with gold leaf so that they shone 
with precious gold fromi hea,d to gilded toe — their very 
loin cloths shone with crysoprase and other gems of 



154 DANCING AND DUCKING 

yellow light. With them travelled great hounds, also 
gilded and adorned with sun-kissed leashes, at which 
they strained when they entered the ballroom and 
scented the lions. These, with a few panthers and 
jaguars were quietly couched at the feet of little 
Princesse Obolensky — she had entered mounted upon 
one of them, though the story went that they had been 
heavily drugged the night before they left their cages. 

Grouped in insolent splendour upon a divan reclined 
or lolled the Persian court entirely in harmoneis of blue 
and green. Their turbans, their dresses were drenched 
with waves of light that came partly from their jewels, 
partly from the eyes which wtere the finest, not only 
in Rome, but in Italy, in Europe and in the New world. 
Round the neck of one of them — Dorotea Radziwill — 
shone the most celebrated of pearl necklaces, known 
as the Tears of Poland. 

Before we took up our stations to complete the 
picture, we had to pass before the entire Pantheon of 
Olympus, gathered round the awful splendour of 
Juno, the Ambassadress, seated upon her throne and 
attended by Rainbows and Loves, marshalled beneath 
the sceptre of Princesse Potenziani as Venus the Queen » 
In and out of the groups as they approached the Central 
dais danced a weirdly, wonderful being, in wild beast 
skins, half human, half faun, light and agile as Ariel. 
Sometimes he sprang in the air as though touched with 
divine frenzy, at others he seemed to roll himself upon 
the earth as though the beast in him had triumphed. 
This inspiringly artistic personage was Tyrwhit of our 
Embassy, and his whimsicalities added just that touch 
of the impromptu to the motions of the different 
groups that must have been given by the fool in stately 
ducal processions of olden times. 



BALLROOMS OF THE BRAIN 155 

The Ambassador looked iSir Walter Raleigh, every 
inch of him, in white silk and diamond-hilted rap;ier, 
his white silk cap, heavy with drooping pearls, and 
the jewels oi the Garter displayed across his doublet of 
moired silk. 

An unforgetable evening and morning this. It has 
made me incurious of all other costume balls past, 
present, and to come — the Indians say delightfully that 
when it is said of a man that he has eaten of " all 
vegetables " in the world, that does not mean he has 
eaten all the vegetables in the world, but merely that 
he has tasted of some of all the different kinds. That 
is certainly the case with the present writer, who feels 
he has been to all the parties that ever have been given 
in London, Paris or Rome and met all the interesting 
people ; although truthfully speaking, like all other 
mortals, he has merely been present at a very few of 
every sort. But the most wonderful of all parties is, 
after all, that afforded by the talk of an interesting! 
man, when to speak, he lights " the ballroom in his 
brain " and sets his fancy or his memory dancing for 
one's benefit. 



CHAPTER IX 

DIPLOMACY 

Athens — Sir Edmund Monson — Lady Monson — Mrs. Ronalds — "Duchesses 
as Thick as Peas " — Maid of Athens Plain — Declaration of War Mislaid 
— Lord Charles Beresford — Paderewski's Prophesy of the Great War 
— Prussians Low Born — Sir Clare Ford — Sir Donald Wallace — Olympia 
— Crown Prince of Greece. 

The privilege of the pen is that, like Sir Boyle Roche's 
bird, it can be in several places at the eame time. 
Indeed, the last chapter has flitted about a good deal — 
from the desks of the excellent Scoones in Garrick Street 
to the ballrooms of Paris and Rome. Thus perhaps 
it may have been less tiresome than if I had kept the 
reader's pose to the grindstone as mine was kept in 
the early 'nineties, despite those varieties of experience 
with which I have attempted a little mural decoration. 
Early in 1890, we he'ard that an examination might 
he held at any time. I had been a good deal in 
Germany during the previous year trying to acquire 
perfection in that tongue, which when Stendhal was 
asked if he knew, he replied that he had spent five 
years in K/zlearning. This necessity for expertism in 
German was due to Sir Augus;tus Paget's request, to 
which I have already referred, that more marks might 
be given for proficiency. This placed it on a level 
of French. Those in the batch that went up with me 
were the present Sir Horace Rumbold, our present 
Ambassador at Constantinople, the late Lord Terence 
Blackwood, my old friends " Tout " Beaumont, now 

156 



ATHENS 157 

Sir Henry Beaumont, and Sir Herbert Bering. The 
examination took place in the middle of a very cold 
winter, and whether it was due to the draughty lodgings 
which I found in Bond Street on my sudden return 
from Delgaty, or to some other cause, I developed a 
very fine attack of bronchitis before it was more than 
half concluded, which necessitated my retiring to bed, 
and put me out of count on that occasion, which turned 
out to be the only one available for me,' as I was 
soon after over twenty-five. Thus I found myself out 
of the direct line for the profession, and decided that 
it would be a pity to forgo the experience of, at any 
rate, a few years in the career as an honorary attache, 
which would ensure for me exactly the same position 
as I should at first have occupied, had I been able to 
complete the examination and been successful. 

I knew plenty of people, both at the Foreign Office 
and in diplomacy, and it was only a question where 
I should first go on this adventure. I had long been 
interested in Greece, ancient and (modern, and as the 
Minist;er, Sir Edmund Monson, had been saying for 
some timie pireviously that he would like an attache 
at the Legation I decided', with Henry Foley, that I 
should go thither, stopping a short time with my first 
cousin, now Sir Evelyn Grant Duff, British Minister at 
Berne during the War, who was then Third Secretary 
at Rome. He gave me a very pleasant time, and I 
made the acquaintance of several interesting Italians, 
whom I afterwards met again during my many visits. 

Modern Athens has so often been described that I 
shall certainly dip no brush in violet and ultramarine 
to paint its external beauties. The Hon. Sir Edmund 
Monson was a defightful Chief, who entertained the 
whole of his Staff to luncheon every day. He was a 



158 DIPLOMACY 

capital raconteur, not nearly so lengthy in his verbal 
as in his written narratives, pausing only now and then 
to draw his fine long fingers through his grey beard. 
His eye was bright brown and vivid, and he never wore 
glasses even in the cruel glare of the Athenian mid- 
day, though he told me that he had begun to feel the 
effects. The beard seemed to grow longer and longer 
while I was at Athens, until it became positively 
patriarchal. Afterwards, when I dined with himv in 
Paris, while he was Ambassador, I found that it had 
been removed at the suggestion of King Edward, who 
was rarely wrong in such mattters. In the pulpit of a 
Sunday, Sir Edmund' made a fine show. The beard 
was very much in its right place when he was discussing 
the ethics of Abraham in his relation to Isaac fits and 
John Stuart Mill. Sir Edmund is the only diplomatist 
I have known who loved to play the parson, though 
all diplomlatisits have to do so to the extent of marrying 
British subjects who make properly attested applica- 
tion. His career was rather exceptional, for he obtained 
his nomination and appointment to a diplomatic post, 
which he resigned with a view to standing' for the 
City of Oxford. Oxford f'ailing to elect him' to Parlia- 
ment, he decided to enter the Consular service, and 
obtained a post somewhere in Austria-Hungary, where 
he had acrimonious epistolary correspondence with the 
F. O. on the subject of his comtnunicating direct with 
the Office or through the Embassy at Vienna. The 
latter was the rule for the rest of the Consular service, 
but Sir Edmund maintained that he was a privileged 
person, owing to his previous diplomatic career. He 
was eventually transferred to a South American Con- 
sular post. There he met and married a beautiful 
Miss Munro, and soon after began agitating to return 



AN ARCHDUCHESS FORGOTTEN 159 

to the diplomatic service. His brothei", Lord Oxen- 
bridge, and powerful frienlds at the F. O. eventually 
did the job for him, and at the period I have 
mentioned he was on his rapid way upward in the 
career, with the plums of the profession, Brussels and 
Paris, about to drop into his mouth. 

As to Lady Monson one felt that she came far nearer 
the Tanagra type in flesh and blood than any of the 
statuettes in the Museum. She was a truly beautiful 
little person, devoted to her family of lusty boy babies. 
The stiory used to run that in later days, as Ambassadress 
entertaining an Austrian Archduchess at tea, she had 
been known to remark suddenly : "I can hear Tommy 
crying in the nursery and so please excuse me for a 
moment." The Archduchess patiently waited five 
minutes, ten minutes, until she finally reaHzed that 
she had been completely forgotten in favour of Tommy. 
She went away disconsolate, a wiser and perhaps a 
better Archduchess. 

The most brilliant woman in London, whose only defect 
in conversation is that, as a rule, she is inaudible, once 
remarked to me that she proposed starting a society for 
bringing " a little darkness and discomfort into the 
lives of the very rich." The events of the last seven 
years have certainly done this for all Archduchesses. 

As the narrative is for a moment moving amkDng 
tthe tovmkr great ones of the earth, I m'ay here insert 
a little mot said to have been uttered at trty old friend, 
Mrs. Ronald's in Eaton Place ever-thronged reception 
of a Sunday afternoon during the height of the London 
season. The two small drawing-rooms were crowded 
with people, so was the staircase, so was every nook 
and cranny, so that the musicians were hardly able 
to strike the notes of the piano or to move their violin 



160 DIPLOMACY 

bows without colliding with a hat or flattening out 
somebody's aristocratic nose. Two ladies are supposed 
to arrive at this juncture, one an habltuee of the house 
and friend of the hostess, the other a newcomer. By- 
dint of vigorous pushing and mferciless treading upon 
toes ^hey had reached the top of the staircase, whence 
it was just possible to view the occupants of the inner 
room, by standing on tiptoe. The leader had even seen 
and nodded to her hostess, who had welcomed her across 
a dozen heads. The newcomer did not respond to a 
slight motion of the hand urging her to advance ,50 
as to be introduced to Mrs. Ronalds. She remained 
gazing into the inner room- with a petrified stare. JHer 
friend whispered to her : " What are you staring at? 
Why don't you come on?" "Look, look!" replied 
the other, pointing and continuing to stare : " Duchesses 
as thick as peas ! " 

I don't know whether others will be as amused by 
this anecdote as I was when it was first told to me 
by a delightful and brilliant American friend, now her- 
self a (sweet) British pea as above, who used to say, 
when asked casually what she was going to do some 
afternoon in Rome, would reply : " Oh, I don't know' : a 
little shopping and afterwards a little snobbing till tea- 
time." 

Thackeray makes great use of the " little word 
snob," though he does not give its true derivation which 
was first pointed out to mfe at the club' by that mbst 
pleasant Prince, Francis of Teck — I suppose I must 
myself have been " snobbing " on that occasion. 
The derivation is, of course, from' the Italian nobile 
with the privative s added as an affix. The word is 
formed quite regularly like rriany other Italian words, 
such as snaturare, meaning to alter the nature of ; 



PAUL BOURGET 161 

snebbiare, to ciear away the clouds ; snodare, to untie 
knots ; snevare, to enervate. 

Before Thackeray, the word was correctly applied 
to the whole population not of the same social class 
as those able to " ruffle it " at Ranelagh or Cremorne. 
With the advent of our democracy, an immense stimulus 
was given to the activity of the new snobs, largely 
recruited from the Liberal Party, which cursed the 
privileges of the Upper House, while secretly ready 
to isell its soul in order to obtain entrance thereto. 
In Austria-Hungary, with its feudal traditions, the 
barriers between the social classes in pre-war days were 
far more rigid, and as it was put to me by a French 
diplomatist, there were just three degrees in Viennese 
society; the old feudal families like Kleinmichel, 
Trautsmansdorff, Esterhazy, and a sm'all number of 
others ; then a far larger and excellent society of 
secondary rank, which was equivalent to our Mayfair 
and Belgravia, and finally, a far larger one comprising 
the State employees below the highest rank, who were 
always on the look-out for a diplomatist whom they 
might boast of obtaining to dine with them'. Bonnes 
fortunes were very easily achieved in this latter set, 
owing to the immense impprtance attached to the 
diplomatic uniform. 

In Paris, the fine flower of snobbishness has, I think, 
blossoniied only to a slight extent, and there is always 
a distinction between the French and English varieties. 
I have often heard an excellent Parisian remark to 
another: " // est tres snob: il va beaucoup dans le 
mondej' where there is no intention to depreciate, and 
where, indeed, the notion is rather to extol the worldly 
wisdom of the individual in question. M. Paul Bourget, 
the novelist and academician, is well known for his 

11 



162 DIPLOMACY 

adoration of the noble Faubourg, and I have known 
him, on more than one occasion, interrupt a literary 
conversation in order to exchange platitudes with 
some anodyne Comtesse. This, of course,, would not 
chime witih the comtnunistic views of Mi. Anatole 
France, who, as he says, does not frequent the Academy 
as he does not find it possible to sit within several 
places of Monsieur Bourget and breathe the particular 
atmosphere in wh'ich revels the author of Mensonges. 
France is, ho^vtever, in my opinion an aristpcrat hin^elf 
in all his ways, from his crimson Cardinal's cap to his 
taste in poetry anid letters. One can well understand 
his dist,aste for the bended knee of Bourget. 

To the Legation at Athens, in Sir Edtnund Monson's 
day, came all sorts of notabilities, strange types like 
old Prince Cantacuzene, the Russian Military Attach^, 
who asked leave always to wear uniform' as he ihad 
passed so many years of his life buttoned up ,to the 
chin that he felt quite uncomfortable in civilian dress. 
Tricoupis was Prime Minister during part of the time 
that I wa!s at Athens, and I had a good m!any chats 
with him. He knew London and the St. James''s Club 
well, wherein I sympathised with him', but did not share 
his admiration for Mr. Gladstone. He was a native 
of Missolonghi, where Byron died, and I remember 
asking if the poet's memory was preserved there. 
" Most certainly it is," he replied. " There is a statue to 
him, and I knew his old boatman who obtained a post 
tlhere when it was known that he had been the poet's 
boatman. I also knew the lady who inspired the poem' : 
' Maid of Athens ere we part ' ; she was old and 
ugly when I knew her, and I cannot see ,that she can 
ever have been beautiful or interesting ; there was 
nothing in her." Hie spoke quite good English, save 



ATHENS AN OVEN 163 

tihat like his sister, whose patties I used to attend in 
the lOdbs Akademias, he was apt to drop his aspirates. 
He told me that he wore the same rather thick clothes 
all the year round, and I myself found, during ,the 
furnace weather, that one got through the day better 
in ratlher thick clothes, which kepit out some of the 
sun's rays, while in thin clothes one was simply grilled 
to a turn. He said that he was alwlays too, busy to 
feel the heat, but added that it was necessary to stay 
at home during the hot piart of the day, " and then the 
evenings are so lovely." I must say that, to my 
northern blood, the difference between day-time and 
night-time was that between the furnace in full blast 
and the furnace with rather less coal on. We used to 
go down to the seashore at Phalerum late at night by 
train to try and get a breath of fresh air fromi the sea. 
Returning to Athens was re-entering the oven. One 
began melting in bed at about 6 a.m., when .the sun 
rose, and this process continued until one was again on 
the beach at Phalerum at midniglit. I am' told Madrid 
is as hot as Athens in summer ; also the Persian Gulf. 
But I am sceptical as to this. I will admit it of one 
other place only, and even then Athens at 3' p.m., 
when the sun has been at work all day, would in 
my opinion win. 

The old Prince Cantacuzene used to tell mfe stories 
of his early days in the diplomatic career. To put 
it jnildly, he did not greatly esteem' either the Serbs 
or the Bulgarians, and gave this account of the 
preliminaries to war between those countries. He was 
en posie at Sofia. The Serbs had withdrawn their 
Charge d'Affdires and left Rhangab^, the Greek 
Minister, in charge of their interests. As the Serbs 
had no cipher, all their telegram's were read by the 



164 DIPLOMACY 

Bulgarian officials, and copies sent to their War Office. 
At II p. In', one night arrived the Serbian declaration 
of war in the shape of a telegram' addressed to 
Rhangabe. Madame Rhangabe was suffering at the 
time from angina pectoris, and h^er husband engaged 
in nursing her. He ordered the servant to leave the 
telegram in an ante -room' while he attended to his wife 
in her critical condition, and finally retired to bed 
exhausted at an . early hour of the morning, entirely 
forgetful of the telegram. At about midnight had taken 
place a Bulgarian Council of War. The councillors sat 
solemnly round the table awaiting the declaration of 
war, which they knew had arrived, to be handed to. them 
by the Greek Minister. None came. At about 9 a.m. 
a visit was paid to Rhangabe, and he was asked if 
he had heard anything from' Serbia. " No, I have 
no news whatever," he replied, sitting up in bed and 
rubbing his eyes. 

The mislaying of this telegram reminds me of an 
amusing incident that occurred during! the Firman 
question, when ten telegrams arrived for Lord Salisbury, 
who was at Beaulieu, from Cairo and Constantinopjle. 
The Secretary of State had brought a cipher with him, 
but unfortunately it proved to be the wrong one. He 
merely sent a telegram* to thb Foreigin Office to enquire 
whether they contained anything of importance. I love 
this story, which show's what a big man Lord' Salisbury 
was — he was far too sure, both of himself and of 
Great Britain to allow such a trifle as ten cipher 
telegrams from' the East to disturb' him. Like many 
other great men he was careless of dress, and the old 
story that he was refused admission on that account 
to the rooms at Monte Carlo may be perfectly itrue. 
I have always liked the explanation for his bad clothes 



LORD BERESFORD 165 

given by one of our Dukes : " You see, when I'm in 
the country everybody knows who I am, so clothes 
don't matter, and when I'm walking about in the 
streets of London noUody knows who I am, so it 
don't matter there either." But best of all I like 
Anatole France's reasoa for wearing the ribbon of the 
Legion of Honour : " Because it' saves the expense 
of benzine — people are sure one's coat^ is tidy when 
they see the ribbon." 

Among other frequenters of the Legation while I 
was on the Staff was Lord Charles Beresford, then in 
command of the Fleet anchored at the Piraeus. Of all 
genial Irishmen that I. have mfet, Lord Charles was the 
most genial. His geniality amounted to genius. I 
believe he could have elicited a laugh and an affirma- 
tive smile out of th|e Sphinx or Abdul Hamid or a 
Chancellor on Budget day. His cabin on board the 
flag-ship, where he more than once hospitably enter- 
tained me, was a joy to behold — a regular garden of 
the wondrous ffowers that rush into existence during 
the brief and radiant Hellenic spring, the most com- 
fortable of chairs, cheroots galore, and anything that 
can be wanted at a West End club could be obtained 
by merely uttering the word in this enchanted corner 
of the Dreadnought. The keynote of the Admiral's 
cabin was photograph's, in silver and crimson and 
blue leather frames : beautiful ladies everywhere, signed 
with every token of esteem and admiration. A galaxy 
of them gazed at one from every table and from 
the walls. Mere men, and even brother admirals, 
appeared to be at a discount, though no doubt there 
vvas a locker full of them somewhere. Lord Charles 
was breezy and outspoken, and I remember on one 
occasion, at a later date, wjh^n he was good enough 



166 DIPLOMACY 

to favour the present writer and others with his 
views as to Lord Fisher's policy at the Admiralty 
when the latter Was First Lord. He dotted all the 
i's — in scarlet — and ended on a splendid- top note 
amid general and hilarious assent. Unfortunately 
we had none of us noticed a figure in a corner of the 
room engrossed upon the Saturday Review: he sat 
perfectly still, and apparently unmoved until the tirade 
was over — and then the First Lord stalked out of the 
room still maintaining perfect silence. 

To me it was like a tonic of fresh' sea breezes to 
meet Lord Charles in London. Our ways did not often 
coincide, I am sorry to say, but when they did happen 
to do so I always enjoyed myself immensely, and J 
hope that I did not produce an opposite impression 
upon the Admiral. 

One of the last occasions on which we met ^was at 
dinner at Lord and Lady Stuart of Wortley's in Cheyne 
Walk. Lord Wortley was then in the House of Commons, 
and sat for one of the divisions of Manchester. The 
guest of the evening was Paderewski, who came with 
his wife, and there were also the Duchess of Atholl 
and one or two others. I remember taking in Madame 
Paderewski and being asked to entertain her with French 
conversation, which I did to the best of my ability, 
while gleaning a few remarks let fall by others in my 
native tongue. The interesting moment occurred, how- 
ever, after the meal, when the ladies had left the room 
and Lord Wortley, Lord Charles (then an M.P.), 
Paderewski and the present writer were seated together, 
a partie carree — at least 1 do not remember another 
man. Paderewski at once began talking : he said — 
and this was in 191 1 — "I am delighted to meet you 
Loi'd Charles, and I may say that I particularly asked 



PADEREWSKI 167 

Mr. Stuart Wortley to invite me to meet you so that 
I might warn one of England's greatest seamen of the 
danger that threatens. I am not talking of what I 
think may be the case, I am telling you of what will 
happen. Germany is preparing to attack you. How 
she will do so I cannot say exactly, but she will attack 
you either at the same time as she attacks France or 
separately. She would like, of course, to do it separately, 
because she can easily wring the neck of the Gallic cock 
when she had done with you. Her shipbuilding is entirely 
directed against you." He then went into a number 
of rather technical details, which were interesting at 
tflie time, but I do not clearly recall them. Then he 
turned rather towards me and went on to say : ** Perhaps 
you are wondering why I, who am a Pole, come and 
talk like this to a British Admiral. It is Just because 
I belong to a down -trodden country, Poland, that I 
am speaking like this to-night. I have lived for years 
at Berlin and watched th^em at work, and also in Poland, 
and from across the Polish frontier. I love England 
because she is a free country with a chance for every 
man who will work. Prussia would like to enslave 
the whole world — and I ^know she will succeed unless 
England is able to stop her. So I warn you— tell your 
Admiralty what I have said, because it is the truth told 
by a friend." Although I made no noite of it at the 
time, I can guarantee the accuracy of my memory for 
this prophetic warning. Paderewski went on to talk 
of the British Government and its achievements during 
the nineteenth century. His knowledge of our home 
politics, of the dates and sequences of ministers over 
many years in the nineteenth and back into the 
eighteenth century was surprising. The three listeners 
agreed more than once that he had the advantage of 



168 DIPLOMACY 

them as to m'atters concerning which two out of the 
three were supposed to be specialists. 

Paderewski did not touch the piano that evening, 
and I fear it is true that we shall never again hear 
his magical renderings of Chopin — the greatest musician- 
poet of modern times. Even Beethoven and Mozart 
only rarely approach that intimately lyrical and poetical 
atmosphere in which Chopin lives. He creates his en- 
vironment at once — in a few notes one is wafted thither — 
while others labour for pages and often fail to reach 
such a creation at all. 

The last time that I saw the future Prime Minister 
of Poland was in 191 5, when I called at Claridge's 
and asked for him. On sending up my card I was 
admitted, and found the great artist-statesman in his 
sitting-room on the side overlooking Berkeley Square. 
He was quite alone. The room was not large ; the 
table littered with cards, letters, telegrams and directories 
of various sorts and of various countries. Paderewski 
greeted me hospitably and warmly as is his wont, and 
we rapidly discussed th(e matter, directly connected with 
the war, on which I had called. I then mentioned 
the wonderful evening at Lord Wortley's, at which I 
have hinted above, and found that, of course, he recalled 
it perfectly. " My warning has proved true," he said. 
" The Prussians and their slaves, the rest of Germany 
and Austria, are there and theres — he drew me to the 
map flagged with pointer pinsi — they will get there and 
there,'" he went on, pointing to various places. " But 
you will beat them at a terrible cost and to the ruin 
of many of your allies. When you have beaten them 
you must never believe that the Prussians will become 
civilized — they are not Germans ; they are a race apart. 
You must occupy, with your fleet, permanently this 



SIR CLARE FORD 169 

island— he pointed, I think, to Riigen, just off the 
coast of Northern Germany, so that you can at once 
cut off their suppUes when they begin again to play 
foul." He spoke with great vehemence and conviction, 
and I was deeply impressed with what he said, which 
recalled the words of Napoleon, to the effect that 
Prussians are not born like ordinary mortals, but are 
bred from exploding shells. A shell bursts and out 
steps a Prussian — a modern version of the story of the 
dragon's teeth. 

Among my colleagues at Athens was Sir Francis 
Elliot, afterwards a Minister Plenipotentiary. His wife 
is a daughter of that delightful person, the late Sir 
Clare Ford, Ambassador at Madrid, and afterwards at 
Rome, where I had occasionally the honour of dining 
with him. His late son, Johnny Ford, was one of my 
boon companions at Scoones's, and evlentually found his 
way into the career, guided by the expert hand of Eric 
Barrington. They have altered the examination now, 
and I daresay for thte better. Apparently they now 
have a board consisting of an ex-diplomatist, an ex- 
politician, and a Labour member, besides otjier strange 
odd fish supposed to cover the whole orbit of political 
interests and to ensure that no old-time cajoleries prevail. 
To me there is something rather comic in a rather jaded 
ex-ambassador conferring with Hobnails as to whether 
Mr. Vere de Vere Beauclerc is a fitting' person to 
receive a nomination or whether Mr. H. Hobnails of 
the Broken Potteries is the more worthy. I suppose 
they compromise in this little matter as the Prime 
Minister does in great ones, and let their knowledge 
or ignorance of cube root settle the matter by nominating' 
botli for one vacancy, also open to the competition of 
ten other candidates. It does seem absurd that after 



170 DIPLOMACY 

so many attempts we should none of us have been 
able to evolve a system which shall secure the best 
man for the post — written examination papers reflect 
only one facet of any personality. Certainly viva voce 
is very important, and that was altogether ignored by 
the wiseacres of my day, headed by the well-intentioned 
but wholly inadequate Eric Barrington. But to return 
to our muttons — or rather to the frolics of former lambs. 
Johnny Ford told me that his father. Sir Clare, began 
life as a cornet of dragoons, and suddenly sold out upon 
being refused an allowance of £3,000 a year by his father. 
To obviate his becoming totally Bohemian, whither his 
tastes seemed to point, he was nominated attache in 
Paris through the intermediacy of Lord Malmesbury, 
and made good in the career. Johnny is, alas, 
no longer living, but his brother. Captain Richard Ford, 
is, I am glad to say, alive and married ,to a charming 
and beautiful lady. He will not, I am sure, object 
to my concluding this brief mention of his father with 
the delightful apostrophe with which he concluded, at 
Rome, an argumtent with Johnny on the well-worn topic 
of allowance from father to son : " Well, my dear boy, 
I suppose you must have it, but let me tell you this : 
boys are very well when they are quite young and 
looked after by their tutor or schoolmaster, but when 
they grow up they become simply acquaintances with 
a claim upon one." Johnny quite played up to this 
amiable outburst of his father's by saying : " I'm im- 
mensely obliged to you, my dear father, and may I 
say that as a mere acquaintance I hope you will keep 
me on your dinner lists at the Embassy, because you 
certainly give the best dinners in Rome." Johnny Ford 
had very good taste in art, and was what might be 
described as a bold collector. He once piroduced from his 



SIR DONALD WALLACE 171 

pocket in my presence at Athens a largle piece of ca<rV'ed 
white marble. I asked what it was, and he replied 
that Jie had found it on the Acropolis and proposed 
taking it back to England with him. There was and 
I suppose still is a law as in Italy against removing 
works of art, but how Johnny Ford got that heavy 
block into his pocket, and managed to go about with it, 
has always been a mystery to me. That other friend 
of mine was subtler who crossed the Italian frontier 
with a bundle of golf clubs wrapped in what looked 
like tattered tarpaulin, but was really a masterpiete 
by Benozzo Gozzoli. 

Carlo Baroli, the Italian Secretary of Legation, lover 
of London and eternal consumer of Virginia cigars, and 
Benavides, the Spanish Secretary, shared with me a house 
near the Athenian Legation. Most of the corps diplo- 
matique used to dine at the Hotel Grande Bretagne, 
where we were comfortable and sociable. Our table 
was often enlarged to receive such visitors as Sir Donald 
Wallace, who had come out for the Government to 
study Greek finance. His book on Russia is now, of 
course, rather out of date, but includes a good 
many shrewd observations. Sir Donald was indebted 
for his start in life to my grandfather, Mr. Morgan, 
who received him into his house at St. Petersburg .and 
did everything for him. He had no charm of manner 
and no flowers of speech ; he was a " close " man, 
a born courtier, and in favour with King Edward. My 
uncle, on my father's side. Grant Duff the diarist, pi 
wliom more anon, used to say that his information was 
always first-rate and most reliable. Sir Donald was 
just that, a canny Scot, who never gave a bawbee away 
without seeing the glint of a saxpence in enchange. 
It is strange that he should havie been an habitue of 



172 DIPLOMACY 

York House, Twickenham, where I went so much, and 
also of my maternal grandfather's house in St. 
Petersburg in former days. They used to say of him, 
jokingly, that he really was his own father, for I believe 
his origin was obscure. 

During the summer at Athens, Carlo Barolr and I 
decided that we would visit Olympia to see the famous 
yellow-flecked marble Hermes of Pruxiteles, which still 
rises, youthful, upon its pedestal amid the waste and 
desolation of the ages. The heat was torrid, and the 
red velvet-cushioned carriages completed the sensa- 
tion of being in a fiery furnace. Wie had several 
long hours of this before we jolted into the wooden 
shed which served as a rail way -station. Above us, 
on a little elevation, dominated on either side by low 
wooded hills, stood the museum with its treasure. From 
the slope opposite emerged this masterpiece of the 
ages after a sleep of centuries. 

The heat of Athens was stultifying. I used' to 
try everything to escape from it, even adopting the 
reckless remedy of galloping out towards Kephissia on 
a beautiful black horse that I had bought soon i^after 
my arrival. I used frequently to meet the celebrated 
King Tino bound on a similar quest. King Tino used 
to be an HabUue of London and friequented the society 
of many of my friends when he could escape from his 
dusty glaring metropolis. The Crown Prince used 
also to be a good deal in evidence at Athens during 
the winter. Sir Edwin Egerton succeeded Sir Edmund 
as Minister. He used to stride along stickless for his 
daily constitutional, waving his arms like windinills. 
Of course, he soon became a familiar figure in a small 
place like Athens, and people would stop him on the 
verge of these pedestrian activities in order to be seen 



SIR FRANCIS EGERTON 173 

conversing with his Britannic Majesty's Minister. This 
used ratiher to bore Egerton, who was anxious to get 
his legs going, and he at last got into the way of 
saying : " Glad to see you, glad to sjee you : hopie you'll 
come and dine at the Legation — Imust be getting on 
now — " thus he would shake off the undesired com- 
panion and continue his perambulations. Egerton 
had a memory for names and faces equalled only by 
that of the Secretary of State himself, to whom! I have 
already referred in thk oonnection. Frequen^tly he would 
trot back to the Legation and remark to his wife that he 
had met so and so on his walk, naming — say the French 
Military Attache — and had asked himl to lunch the 
following day. One thing certain was that the French 
Military Attache would not be lunching at the British 
Legation on that day ; it might be anybody, but it 
certainly would not be he — most probably the Russian 
Naval Attache would turn up, and then it would be 
considered that His Excellency had made quite a good 
shot at the identity of his guest — France and Russia 
were allies then : the protocol w'as safe ! One chilly 
winter's evening he came cheerfully back (it can also 
be cold in Greece) and warming his hands before 
the crackling logs said to his wife : " I'vp asked a 
young man I'm sure we've met somewhere to dine 
to-morrow. I can't for the life of me remember 
his name — I rather think he's a British subject. 
When I invited him in order to gtet on with my 
walk he asked if he were to bring his wife, and 
what could I say but — of course bring your wife? I 
told him to come in a dinner jacket, and warned him 
that we dined at eight -fifteen sharp and never waited 
for anyone. He gav!e a pleasant little laugh and 
accepted." 



174 DIPLOMACY 

" I wonder whom he has asked this time," said Lady 
Egierton to her companion. " I suppose from what we've 
been told he can't be an Englishman." 

The mystery was solvjed precisely at eight--fi£teen the 
following evening when the drawing-room door of the 
Legation was ppfened by the English butler wi'th a 
look of well-restrained surprise on his countenance as 
he announced : " Their Royal Highnesses the Crown 
Prince and Princess pf Greece." 

I had a rather entertaining experience at the house 
of one of the Russian Secretaries, whose wife had a 
good deal of the charme slav, which vanished with 
Bolshevism. We one day had an argument as to 
whether Russian or English possessed the most powerful 
expletives in a literary form. I, of course, upheld the 
supremacy of Anglo-Saxon, while the lady in question, 
who became afterwards an ambassadress, was equally 
determined that it was Russian. So we made a bet 
of one thousand cigarettes to a picnic, to be given by the 
lady if she lost. We had the Austrian First Secretary 
as impartial judge of the contest. No length was set 
to the imprecations, which might be as long or as short 
as the reciter chose. The lady was allowed to begin. 
She made a splendid st^rft with flashing eyes and an 
accent of concentrated rage, producing a flush which 
was highly becoming. The selection, flung directly at 
me, was from a poem by Poushkin addressed to some 
one of Jewish extraction. So far as I could follow 
it was a flamboyantly splendid piece of rhetoric and 
took quite three minutes to repeat. > 

I waited until the fair speaker had subjsided amid 
general applause, and then looking our umpire full in 
the eyes, hurled at him the following single line from 



THE MATCH 175 

Shakespeare at the top of my voice, which is fairly- 
powerful : 

" The devil damn thee black, thou cream- faced loon ! " 

He wilted — and I won. 



CHAPTER X 

VENICE AND LONDON 

Venice — Catulle Mendes — Duke of Bronte— Countess Hoyos and a Byronic 
Anecdote — Marquis of Huntiy — Prince Bismarck — At Homburg — The 
Empress Frederick — German Society — Sir William Harcourt — The 
Duke of Devonshire — Kaid Maclean — Herbert Spencer. 

I WENT on leave about the beginning of July, and 
met in Venice my good friend Alexander Dalhousie 
Ramsay, who had relations there — Bentivoglio d'Aragona 
and his charming wife, the March^esa Idita. The beauty 
of Venicie at that timfe was the 'Comtessa Morosini, who 
had round her a regular court of young Italian 
officers and aristocrats. My Italian was then rather 
to seek, but as thie lady was of French extraction, I 
managed to make myself understood tO' the extent of 
being invited to spend a few days at Treviso, where 
the Morosini had a villa. It Was a wonderful visit 
indeed, everything blazing, from the sun to the mortals 
beneath it, all fully vocal in admiration of our 
hostess. One detail amused me greatly at the time ; 
when the heat grew rather less towards evening the 
Morosini would order her little pony-cart— just room for 
the driver and one more. She went for six little drives 
of about six minutes duration with each of us young 
men in turn. As she explained to me, it was the only 
way to avoid trouble with such inflammable material. 
Personally I fell in love with the daughter of the house, 
Morosina Morosini, aged nine— the name alone was 

176 



VENICE 177 

enough. Alexander Ramsay was the gayest of the gay, 
and we got on excellently wtell with Presbitero, Celleri 
and others whose names are less vivid as I write. I 
was taken to see the Da Vinci picture, which hung at 
the Monte di Pieta, where it had been pledged many 
years before and never claimed. I don't think I ever 
enjoyed bathing (save at Cuckoo Weir in Eton days) 
so much as during my visit to Venice. Ramsay and I 
would go out to the Lido at about eight o'clock, when 
it was delightfully cool, and the beach was quite free 
of other bathers. We would swim far out together into 
the silent lagoon, the tepid water yielding to us and 
enfolding us in an amorous embrace. Returning, we 
dressed and dined at the restaurant at about nine o'clock. 
We met plenty of friends, and kept up our laughter and 
chatter almost till morning. I had lovely rooms in the 
Casa San Samuele, and there wrote my poem. The 
Death of Aretino, on Titian, Palma Vecchio, Aretino 
and Veronica Franco, that Venetian Aspasia. The little 
volume that contained this and other youthful poems, 
Escarlamonde, was published in 1891, but has long 
been out of print. I hit upon the title " Escarlamonde " 
many years before the appearance of Massenet's opera 
of the same name. It appears in the poems of the 
early troubadours, and must have been a well-known 
woman's name in the South of Franqe in the thirteenth 
century. 

During my visit to Venice I met Catulle Mend^s, 
who was an habitue and himself a brilliant raconteur. 
He said that he had recently met Wilde in Paris, who 
was deeply engaged in evolving the idee psychologiqae, 
which was to form the backbone of his next play. 
Wilde had praised Ibsien, especially Hedda Gabler^ 
though he said that he followed the reverse method, striv- 

12 



178 VENICE AND LONDON 

ing to make the dialogue as brilliant as possible, whereas 
Ibsen rejects any phrase beyond the scopie of individuals 
in ordinary life. He enjoyed the sensation of multiplied 
personality, obtainable only in the wings of a theatre 
where his work was being played, by hearing the tears 
or applause that greet any particular line. He pre- 
ferred, for that reason, the Dramatic to the Analytic, 
where the author is for ever ignorant of his true 
admirers. " Wilde had further remarked," said Mendes, 
as we sat together in the low-ceilinged Vapori restaurant 
inhaling cigarette smoke and indolently watching the 
opaline rings it made, " that paradoxes, though only 
half truths, were the best we could get, as there were 
no absolute truths." Mendes had then said: "There 
should be a paradoxist to act as your balance on the 
moral side ; " to which Wilde replied : " Yes, but 
Christ was the only one there has ever been ; our 
familiarity with the New Testament blinds us to the 
enormity of its paradoxes. WJiat could be more 
enormous than ' Blessed are the Poor.' " 

With such adventures as these, and others yet more 
ephemeral in the society of my friend Ramsay, the 
pleasant weeks of my Venetian visit ebbed away. He 
was the first to leave, however, and I went to see 
him off at his aunt's house, wherie the servants all 
insisted on kissing his hand. I don't remember seeing 
this done again in Italy, though my father tells me that 
when he was at Vienna long ago, the keepers always 
kissed the hands of the master and his guests before 
beginning the day's sport. When I was staying at 
Maniaci, in Sicily, with my friend the Hon. Alec. 
jHood, Duke of Bronte, the natives of the place always 
kissed his hand, which he extended for the purpose. 
I am for falling in with old customs like this, new 



BYRON'S GUICCIOLI 179 

(and greatly inferior) substitutes come along fast 
enough. The habit is recorded in the Austrian phrase, 
" Kuss die Hard/' which frequently takes the place of 
the act. 

Among the Anglo -Austrians that I met in the early 
'nineties and miade friends with was Countess Hoyos, 
whose daughter married Count Herbert Bismarck. I 
remember meeting at luncheon with her the wife of the 
Chancellor, Princess Bismarck, a grim old lady, who 
spoke remarkably good English. She was a reader 
of Truth, and anxious to hear about Henry Labouchere, 
whom I had met once or twice. She described him 
as a mocking bird, bu.t said she read ^very word he 
wrote, imagining, like many others, that the first personal 
pronoun of Truth covered the identity of the founder 
and proprietor, whereas, of course, he only contributed 
a small part of the paper, save in the very early days 
of its publication. 

Countess Hoyos told me that sh^ had been acquainted 
many years before, with an old lady, a Mrs. Barry, 
widow of a Genoese banker living at the beginning 
of the nineteenth century. This lady had been intimate 
with Byron. Upon leaving Italy for Greece, never to 
return, the poet made a will, whereby all the effects in 
his Italian house were to go to the Barry's in case he 
did not come back. Some time after his death this 
house became their property, and upon opening one of 
the drawers of a secretaire, she found all the red hair 
of the Countess Guiccloli, which she had cut off and 
given to Byron upon his leaving her, together with her 
miniature, which was lying upon the top of the hair. 
Byron had not found room for all this in his baggage. 

At the end of this book will be found the; pedigree of 
the Duffs and Gordons, showing the present writer's family 



180 VENICE AND LONDON 

connection with Byron and With the Fife family and the 
literary instincts of the Duffs. It was presented to him by 
his good friend, Mr. J. M. Bulloch, editor of the Graphic, 
and was drawn up to illustrate the literary ability which 
entered the house of Gordon with the Duft" marriage, 
early in the seventeenth century. Duff of Keiihmore 
was the common ancestor. Prior to this marriage the 
gey (awful) Gordons were apparently devoid of literary 
gifts, though active enough in other respects, for Mr. 
Bulloch has assured the author that not one of them' 
died in his bed for many generations — and what Mr. 
Bulloch, historian of the Gordons, does not know of 
that family may be safely held to be ;apocryphal. There 
is one curious anecdote of Huntly, head of the house, 
being ordered to meet the King of Scotland at Perth. 
His kinsman, Gordon of Gicht (see pedigree), had 
recently killed an enemy of his in Aberdeen, and was 
consequently held guilty of manslaughter. He had 
taken refuge with Huntly at Strathbogie, and while 
with his cousin was perfectly safe. Huntly replied 
to the King that he would only come to Perth on con- 
dition of Gordon's receiving a free pardon. This the 
King refused, and Huntly in his turn refused to go 
south to Perth, and the King was not strong enough 
to force him. No wonder that Huntly was known 
as the Cock of the North. 

A curious proof of the magic of a name came under 
my personal observation at Aberdeen at the end of 
last century, when the candidature for the Lord Rector- 
ship of Aberdeen University took place. Two excellent 
and estimable individuals presented themselves in full 
confidence that they would meet with no competitor 
worthy their steel. No more they would, and to one 
of them the Lord Provostship would certainly have 




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«J ^ 3 

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PRINCE BISMARCK 181 

fallen, had not Huntly suddenly taken it into his head 
that he would like to be Lord Rector. The point of 
the anecdote will be lost if the reader does not supply 
imaginative local colour to enhance my description of 
Huntly as not only non-academical but very much the 
reverse ! Well, the hard-headed Aberdonians (Aberdeen 
is the city where Jewis find it impossible to get a 
living) immediately elected Huntly. I must say I like 
them for it, and hope they will not mind my giving 
this instance of their susceptibility. I am quite sure 
that the Duke of Richmond as a name does not stir 
the Aberdonian breast one whit. 

Homburg in the 'nineties was a favourite haunt of 
jaded London society, headed by the Prince of Wales, 
whose villa was looked upon as a kind of Mecca by 
some. He was a regular frequenter of the springs in 
the morning before breakfast, and the promenade under 
the lime-trees was full of beautiful people. The 
Ambassador to Germany was at that time Sir Edward 
Malet, whom I had dined with in Berlin, and always 
found very pleasant. He married Lady Ermyatrude 
Russell, sister of the Duke of Bedford. They had a 
wonderful dinner service of gold plate among other 
wonderful luxuries, and the Emperor William was a 
frequent — if not a too frequent — visitor. Sir Edward 
used to tell me of his interview's with Bismarck, that 
the Chancellor always produced yellow Rhine wine of 
exceedingly fine quality, and expected his interlocutor 
to drink glass for glass of it with himself. Therein 
he showed his craft, for few men must have had better 
heads than he, up to a certain date at any rate, when, 
I believe, he stopped heavy drinking, with the remark 
that each man was destined by God to drink so many 
thousands of bottles — and no more I 



182 VENICE AND LONDON 

The Ambassador frequented Homburg during the 
month of August, when the Prince was there, and 
I frequently dined with him, and met most of the 
interesting people who came out from' England. There 
were also some Americans, headed by the admirable 
speaker and anecdotist, Chauncey Depew, who used to 
find great favour with the ladies. They liked the 
anecdotes and the relish given to them by the old 
man. I remember his once asking a very prtetty young 
friend of mine to tell him a funny tale in return for 
one of his. She replied : " You saw Mamma with a 
new crimson parasol to-day, didn't you? Well, I gave 
it her yesterday as a birthday present. We're both so 
pleased. Mamma because she's got a new* parasol, and 
I because I can always see her coming in time 
now ! " 

Sir Edward Malet used to say that a good ambas- 
sador's career should resemble the career of a good 
woman — ^neither should be talked about, and certainly, 
I think, he realized that ideal at Berlin, where he was 
liked by all, including even the Emperor. He carried 
his discretion to the point of concealing the fact that 
he was very fond of a game of skittles, or Kugel Spiel, 
as the Germans call it — one rolls a wooden ball down 
a passage and tries to knock over as m!any wooden 
pins as possible. I was often invited to join a game 
of this sort, in which various august personages took 
part. At his request I never mentioned where I was 
going that afternoon. 

The late Emperor and Empress Frederick were great 
friends of my uncle. Sir Mountistuart Grant Duff, 
my father's elder brother. W|hen William succeeded 
to the throne, my uncle was offered the Embassy at 
Berlin, but it turned out that with Kaiser William he 



THE EMPRESS FREDERICK 183 

was not a persona grata, solely owingi to this friendship 
with his father and mother, so he did not proceed. 
OAving to this friendship I was occasionally asked to 
dine by the widowed Empress at the Schloss, near 
Homburg. She Was exceedingly kind and amiable, 
and on the whole, the most interesting woman talker, 
with one exception, that I have ever met. She always 
swept away ceremony and spoke in English, quite 
regardless of the Germans all round us during or after 
a meal. I remember her saying cheerfully : " Wie 
do these things much better in England, don't we, 
Mr, Ainslie? These Germans will never come up to 
us." I felt rather shy of assenting, but did so, and 
afterwards admired her for being so outspoken. Of 
course the Germans did not like it, but they wtere 
mostly a very conceited lot of people, as we afterwards 
had excellent reason to know, and some snubbing did 
them no harm. 

The Empress had what I call a rich conversation. 
She was vividly interested in literature, and also in all 
the arts and natural sciences such as ornithology (a 
hobby of mine, as I have said), botany, chemistry, 
geology, etc., and would pour forth a flood of 
statements, based upon her reading or upon what she 
had been told or seen. Fortunately I wfas able to keep 
my side of the conversation going, and thus sppnt 
delightful hours in her company. But I remember old 
General Du Plat, who had been in her service, deeply 
deploring the Empress's thirst for knowledge, which 
kept him on his hind legs for so long at a stretch, while 
she had the cabinets and cases of museums opened 
and discussed their contents with the curators. Count 
Seckendorff was generally in attendance when I went 
to the Schloss, and I hear Germans often declare that 



184 VENICE AND LONDON 

the Empress married him, but do not profess to know 
the truth of the matter. 

I might have frequented German society much more 
than I did, both there and in Berlin, but there has /always 
been for me something gross and unsympathetic in 
the general tone of Germans. Of course there are 
exceptions, such as Novalis, but he is not of our time, 
and Goethe stands apart with the very few greatest 
European writers. Stendhal said that he had spent 
three years in unlearning the language, but I have 
spent twenty-five without succeeding in doing so. I 
spoke it and read it fluently when I was twenty-five, 
and when I was forty read the complete works of 
Nietsche in the original in Hauptmann and Campe's 
edition. It is curious how nearly all great German 
writers despise and dislike their own country. Heine 
is a proverbial instance, and Nietsche is not any 
less contemptuous. The hairy heel of the barbarian 
protrudes at the oddest moments. Witness the follow- 
ing little anecdote, which illustrates the point, and was 
told me by my friend. Captain Patrick de Bathe. When 
he was Secretary to the Ambassador, Sir Frank Lascelles, 
at Berlin, the Ambassador announced one day that a 
party must be given to the big -wigs of Berlin — Admiralty, 
War Office, etc. The question was, what sort of party 
should it be? Pat, with that promptitude and surety 
of social touch that characterizes him, said, " I suggest 
sir, a stand-up buffet, with lots of champagne, beer, 
pates de fole gras, lobster salads, chickens, etc. It 
will save the trouble of talking to them, because they 
will be fully engaged with the victuals." The latter 
argument was cogent, and the date was fixed. All official 
Berlin crowded the Embassy (I forget if the most 
highest were present or no), and made a bee line for 



THE FORGOTTEN SAUCE 185 

the refreshments, as Pat had predicted. They made 
short work of a whole poultry-y.ard of chickens nature 
and in salad and a holocaust of the other comestibles, 
washing them down with champagne or beer — often 
taken alternately. The Staff of the Embassy was busily 
employed in seeing that fresh relays of food were 
brought up in time to meet the situation. The evening 
wore on most successfully, and still Berlin continued 
to guzzle. Pat grew weary of watching the disappear- 
ance trick applied to innumerable jMtes, when his atten- 
tion was attracted by the peculiar behaviour of General 

Prince von , who was endeavouring to force a large 

parcel of something into the tail-coat pocket of his 
gorgeous gold-laced Uniform. On approaching the 
General, Pat observed the claw of a lobster protruding 
from a copy of the Berliner Tageszeitang, and pre- 
venting the entrance of the rest of the mollusc. Quick 
as the thought, Pat seized a large sauce-boat full of 
mayonnaise sauce, and presenting it with a bow to the 
General, purple in the face with his efforts to conceal 
the lobster, said : " Excellency, you have forgotten the 
sauce " (Excellenz, Sie haben vergessen die Sauce). 

Like a true Prussian, the General did not take it 
smiling, but made a formal complaint, and there wias 
" the devil to pay," but the joke was certainly worth 
the candle in this case. 

I used occasionally to meet Sir William Harcourt 
at luncheon parties, and he was certainly one of the 
most brilliant raconteurs with whom I have ever laughed. 
He had a somewhat grim Victorian exterior, and was 
often apt to browbeat the young. I was always de- 
termined to get over this defect in my seniors, and 
to extract what honey the bear might have concealed 
beneath his rough coat. I think I definitely made 



186 VENICE AND LONDON 

good with Sir William on a certain occasion, when 
he remarked that few were well acquainted with the 
dates of the Kings of England. He was then Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, and looked upon as anathema 
maranatha by my own class of landed proprietors. 
No one at table took up the challenge, so* the Chancellor 
proceeded to reel them off from the days of King 
Arthur. When he got to King John, he made a slip 
of a few years, so I chipped in with the correct date, 
and the remark sotto voce that there was much to be 
said for King John's vie\Vs as to landed property — that 
Magna Carta business at Runnymede had been a put- 
up job. This tickled the author of the Hares and 
Rabbits Bill, and of the Death Duties before they 
assumed their present form, and he addressed in future 
much of his conversation to me. Among things he 
said to me were : " I heard someone in the entourage 
remark to the Queen (Victoria) : ' I hear they are 
going to make a great many peers.' ' Who are they? ' 
asked the Queen." 

Also concerning Lord Hartington, who afterwards 
became the silent Duke of Devonshire, and for so 
long a period presided over the fortunes of the Whigs, 
he remarked that he had never known him give any- 
thing to anybody. " For six years, when he was leading 
the Liberal Party, I went to him daily at Devonshire 
House. Found him always sitting at breakfast. He 
never offered me a chop. I had the greatest difficulty 
in making him give a political dinner. I finally said : 
'The Duke v^ll pay for it.' I then had difficulty 
with his Grace. Three such dinners, and three only, 
were given, virtually by me. When Burke, his secretary, 
was engaged to be married, I said to Hartington : 
you will have to give him' a wedding present. ' Why 



THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE 187 

should I? I never gave anyone a Wedding present in 
my life.' " 

Personally I itmmensely admired this magnificent solid 
stolidity of the late Duke of Devonshire, and Sir 
William's attempts to belittle him served, on the contrary, 
to increase my regard for that prototype of the Victorian 
British aristocrat. He carried this attitude through 
life, and my friend Dodo Benson's witty diefinition in 
his Mad Annual deserves to be recorded' here. The 
illustration depicts the Duke with his hat tilted over 
his brow, seated on a bench of the House of Lords. 
The legend runs : " It is said that I am in the habit 
of falling asleep in the House of Lords. I do not 
know of what interest this can be to anyone. It may 
possibly occur again." 

There was a certain Russian diplomatist, honorary 
member of a club frequented by the late Duke of 
Devonshire, who went there every day about six o'clock, 
met this Russian, who was an ultra-expert ecarte player, 
and almost invariably lost to him, before it was time 
to dress for dinner, between twenty and fifty pounds, 
according to the run of the cards. The Duke sat there 
absolutely stolid, as if he were carved by Grinling 
Gibbons to represent the Duke of Devonshire. 

Sir William was very free with his criticisms, and 
referring to a certain rather rickety peer, who had been 
objected to as Master of the Horse on the ground that 
he did not know one when he saw it, told me he had 
retorted : " It's the best post for him! : as he can't 
walk, no other would be possible." 

Among other interesting people whom I saw in the 
'nineties was Kaid Maclean, who had a curious adventure 
in the course of his campaigning. He vouched for 
the absolute truth of the statement, but always added 



188 VENICE AND LONDON 

to his narrative the stipulation that it should not be 
made puhlic during his lifetime. The story was as 
follows : "I was taken prisoner by the Mahdi, and 
kept for some days in close confinement to my tent, 
with sentries guarding it outside, day and night. Need- 
less to say, the days were heavy on myi hands, as I 
had nothing to read, and my time w'as chiefly spent 
wondering whether the Government would come to terms 
with my captors before or after my being shot. One 
night I retired, when it was dark, upon the litter-bed 
in a corner of the tent. The white awning of the tent 
did not make it pitch dark, though it must have been 
quite late at night, when I awoke with a start from 
my first sleep. I saw, standing a few feet from my 
bed, an old man in a long flowing white robe. He 
had a beard, which fell to his middle ; his hands were 
folded one upon the other, and he was gazing down 
upon me intently with dark glowing eyes. Their aspect 
was benignant, and his face struck me as infinitely 
noble and spiritual. I much wished to speak to him, 
but found, to my surprise, that I was not able to utter 
a syllable. Gradually the figure moved away towards 
the entrance of the tent, and finally disappeared. I 
was quite convinced that someone had obtained leave 
to look at ine when I was sleeping, and asked the 
Arab soldier, who brought my water and prison fare 
in the morning, who this could have been. At first he 
laughed at the idea, but when I glave a minute descrip- 
tion of my visitor, his whole aspect changed, his eyes 
flamed, and he threw himself upon the ground, which 
he kissed, exclaiming, ' You have seen the Prophet. 
He has appeared to others in this valley. All Will now 
be well with you : you will be released to-day or very 
soon. But why did you not speak to him? If you 



HERBERT SPENCER ON BILLIARDS 189 

had spoken, he would have granted you the wish of 
your heart, and all would have been well with you for 
the rest of your life.' 

" The order for my release came that very day." 

Such is the curious narrative told by Kaid Maclean 
to my friend Lady Ward, wife of Sir Edward Ward, 
G.C.E., and by her recently handed on to me for 
inclusion in this volume. To my mind it acquires 
additional interest from being the unique experience 
of the kind by a man of first-rate practical ability, 
whose word, so far as I know, ^w'as never doubted during 
his life. I can Well conceive, however, that he would 
not have cared to face the sallies of his friends if it 
had been made public in his lifetime. 

A very different figure, much in the public eye at 
this period of the 'nineties and long before, was the 
philosopher, Herbert Spencer, oiie of the pillars of the 
Athenaeum Club. The story still runs there that it 
was Spencer who made the famous and often quoted 
billiard gibe. At any rate, he was fond of a game, and 
also fond of winning it. Soundly beaten by a new- 
co,mer to the billiard-room, he turned from him at the 
end of the game with the remark : " The excellence 
of your play is clear evidence of a wasted youth." 

This is not the place to talk of Spencer's thought, 
but it is permissible to remark upon his insularity in 
respect to the writers of his own and other times. 
My friend Croce has pointed out that much of his 
work had been already done and surpassed by other 
critics, whom he had not taken the pains to consult, 
with the result that he was often out of date at the 
time of first publication. For instance, on October 22, 
1892, he wrote to the Figaro, that owing tq stress 
of his own work, and to the fact that Renan's interests 



190 VENICE AND LONDON 

rarely coincided with his, he had never read a line of 
the author of the Vie de Jesus. To my mind that is 
an astonishing confession in a great philosopher, it 
would have been deplorable in the easel of a -far smaller 
man. Spencer sat on the Library Committee of the 
London Library with my uncle, Sir Mountstuart Grant 
Duff. When the proposal to approve the acquisition 
of a second edition of Balzac, owing to the great 
demand for them by members, guaranteed as genuine 
by the librarian, Spencer objected, and when pressed 
by the rest of the Committee for his reason, found 
nothing better to say than that they would take up 
" too much shelf -room." I believe Spencer would have 
chopped up the first folio of Shakespeare (whom prob- 
ably, like Plato and Renan, he had never read), to make 
room for First Principles. 

Herbert Spencer has lost much of his prestige o,fl 
late years, though he has been translated into most 
European and some Oriental languages. The Japanese, 
I believe, still read him, but they are now* apparently 
revising their views, if not their methods, to judge 
from the pirating of my translation of B. Croce's 
Philosophy of the Practical, which was used as the 
original, for translation into Japanese, without a word 
of acknowledgment to Croce or to myself. If translators 
are traitors {traduttori traditori), what is to be said of 
the translators of translators? Only, I suppose, that 
they are Japanese. But I do not wish to suggest that 
I do not admire and like the Japanese as a nation, 
for that would be false. Pirating of popular books 
is not imknown in the Western world. 



CHAPTER XI 

ON LEAVE IN ENGLAND 

Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff— Belling the Cat at Downing Street— Grant Duff 
and Disraeli — Gladstone — Joseph Chamberlain — Mr. John Morley and 
India — What is a Gentleman — Robert Browning and Aubrey de Vera — 
Tennyson — Lord Acton — The Tempo has changed — The Club — Harry 
Cust and the Souls — Calve and Mascagin — Harry Labouchere. 

On returning to Engla,nd from Homburg on leave, I 
applied tp be moved to Brussels, but this turned out 
to be impossible, as there was already an attache ,to 
tjhat Legation. They offered me the Hague instead, 
and this I accepted on condition that I might remain 
six weeks in England. Most of this time I spent at 
York House, Twickenham, with my uncle and aunt, 
Sir Mount^stuart and Lady Grant Duff. In Mr. 
Bullock's table, printed in this volume, showing the 
literary qualities that entered the Gordon family with 
the Duff marriage, my uncle will be found in his place. 
There can now be no doubt that he has made a 
permanent contribution to our literature. All British 
diarists must stand below Pepys, but Grant Duff holds 
an [honourable place on a level with Evelyn. Such. 
acute minds as that of my friend, Mr. A. B. Walkley 
of the Tintes, so well known as a critic, find nightly 
solace from the sober pages of the Diary illuminated 
with so many good stories and reflecting so faithfully 
the solid unshakeable position of a mid-Victorian 
politician and man of the world. Mr. Walkley has 
assured me that this book is one of his " pillow books." 
Grant Duff" was an admirable host, and contrived to 

191 



192 ON LEAVE IN ENGLAND 

see an imimense number of interesting people. He was 
alert for practically the whole fifty years which the 
Diary covers, not only to political and social life, but 
also to literary and artistic life. I have spent more 
pleasant evenings under his roof at York House and 
Lexden Park, Colchester, whither he later migrated, 
than anywhere else. The journal closes with the 
accession of Edward VII. My uncle was intimate with 
all the principal statesmen between 1870 and the acces- 
sion of King Edwajd, though with some of them his 
relations varidd very considerably during that period. 
With Gladstone, for instance, he had been on the 
most intimate terms until the Irish Home Rule Bill, 
and had twice been in his Government (India and 
Colonies — Under-Secretary of State).' But when that 
measure came into the foreground he decided to leave 
his former leader, at the cost of his well-earned peerage 
and of his position as an active statesman „ But such 
sacrifices to principle were so comhion in British politics 
at that time, and before, that they hardly attracted 
attention. To-day th'ey may appear more remarkable. 
My uncle Mountstuart Grant Duff told me of Glad- 
stone, that when he was in the room with the members 
of the Liberal Party there was never for a moment any 
question as to who was the leader. Any other pe,rson— 
be it Joe Chamberlain or Mojley or some other stalwart 
of those days — was obviously out of the question. 
Anecdotes of Gladstone's habit of conversing with certain 
women in and about Piccadilly at one time ^ew\ from 
lip to lip. Certain members of his Government icon- 
suited about it and decided that the Chief was 
to be warned of his attentions being! misinterpreted. 
The question was, however, who was to bell the 
cat? A certain politician who had been loud- 




DOUGLAS AINSLIE, I922, 



Pliolograph by Clmide Harris. 



To face p, 192, 



GRANT DUFF AND DIZZY 103 

voiced in condemnation eventually agreed to perform 
the task, provided he was left alone to tackle the 
Premier. One of Gladstone's breakfast parties was 
fixed upon, and th'e hero in question lingered' ,alone 
in the room after a dozen of his guests had departed. 
Gladstone stood in front of the fireplace, his black 
eyes glowing like furnaces. There was a piause. " Have 
you anything particular to say to me? " at last inquired 
the Chief. Their eyes met, and no doubt Gladstone 
well knew what was in the wind' behind those other 
eyes. " No, no, I have nothing special to say," 
stammered the protagonist. Gladstone took down the 
Bible as the door closed upon his critic. 

I came in for just a few breakfast parties,; which 
were the rage in the 'eighties and' 'nineties. My uncle 
told me that he had never known Disraeli well, and' 
much regretted that he had not done so when the 
opportunity presented itself. They used often to leave 
the House of Commons together, late in the evening}, 
and Disraeli at one time rather sought him' out because, 
as he cynically observed, it was pleasant to take a few 
steps with someone who could not want to obtain a 
favour, and that could only be done by associating with* 
one's political opponents. Frequently Disraeli would 
press him to come to supper, but Grant Duff: always 
refused, as he rose early in order to attend a breakfast- 
party. In later life he much regretted that he had 
sacrificed Dizzy's suppers to Gladstone's breakfasts. 
The former must have been incom'paribly more inter- 
esting, because Dizzy was a poet as well as a politician 
whose imaginative Writing survives and will survive 
for many a day. My uncle read himi a .great deal 
towards the end of his life. It is amusing to observe 

how often the hard-bitten Liberal ends his career 

13 



194 ON LEAVE IN ENGLAND 

by entering upon the primrose path' paved with 
copies of the Morning Post. 

I only heard Gladstone speak twice, once in the 
Comtnons and once at Oxford, when he came down to 
advocate Free Trade. I disagreed altogether with his 
views on this question (which is insoluble as a philosophic 
question, for it depends upon whose interests are in view') 
being in favour of Protection, but from the moment he 
began speaking, with his flaming eyes and appearance of 
unshakeable conviction, I fully realized what the impact 
of his personality must be for those who came into 
daily intercourse with him. When discussing! the 
situation at the time of the first Homfe Rule Bill, my 
uncle observed of Gladstone that while he was studying 
a question, turning it over in his mind, there were 
moments when it was possible to suggest alternative 
views with a chance of their being accepted. But ,once 
he had come to a conclusion, one ,was up against a 
wall of steel if one ventured a modification, and Ihis 
mortal enemy if persistent. Gladstone's true sphere 
should have been the Church : he would have done 
far less harm there than he did in politics. 

Joseph Chamberlain came to York House soon after 
his second marriage with his charming Virginian wife. 
He had organization on the brain at the time and 
kept repeating to me that what the country needed Was 
organization. " See what I have achieved with it in 
Birmingham " : then he produced a long statement of 
what he had achieved there. But I felt that Jie was 
out of his element in the atmosphere of culture that 
pervaded York House. He had an exclusively practical 
mind, but his ability on his own subjects amounted to 
genius. I last saw him in a little restaurant at Florence, 
just before his final breakdown. He was doing him- 



MR. JOHN MORLEY AND INDIA 195 

self well, as he always did. Yellow wine flowfed and 
an immense cigar glowed as soon as the repast was 
over. 

I remember his dilating over a similar cigar at York 
House upon the utter unreliabihty of Lord Randolph' 
Churchill. He said that Lord Randolph had alssured him 
that he would not move rejection of a certain Bill, but 
leave it to Chamberlain, who, acting upon this statement, 
prepared his speech and was about to deliver it — on 
the point of rising to his feet — when he saw Randolph 
Churchill already risen and evidently about to begin 
speaking upon it. He put this down to extreme nervous- 
ness of temperament and inability to restrain himself 
any longer. He concluded by saying : " Churchill must 
have suffered agonies before his speech." 

Another politician, at one time intimate with my 
uncle, was Mr. Johin Morley (now a Viscount' as iall 
good Radicals should be). Morley had followed 
Gladstone on the Homfe Rule question, and thereby made 
sure of his peerage and higher office. It was a public 
calamity when he was made Secretary of State for 
India. I have it from a foreign diplomatist, now an 
Allied Ambassador, who had much State business at the 
India Office, that the whole of his policy w'as disastrous 
to the maintenance of British authority in that great 
country. This policy has been carried on by Mr. 
Montagu. But this book is not a political treatise, so 
I shall not dwell upon the subject. 

I remember being present upon the last occasion he 
lunched with Grant Duff. Austin Dobson and Mr. Edmund 
Gosse also came down to luncheon, and there was a 
good deal of desultory conversation. Robert Browning 
I never met, though he used to come a good deal in 
earlier days, but he did not make himself popular with 



196 ON LEAVE IN ENGLAND 

the female part of the establishrnfent, for I remember 
my aunt teUing me that he always struck her as being 
" not quite a gentleman." What is a gentleman? The 
significance of the word seem's to vary with the speaker. 
I cling to the old acceptation that it should and does 
mean a man belonging' to a certain group of families 
with pedigree and certain traditions. A gentleman can 
be a criminal and yet remain a gentleman^ because 
he can't help it. The notion of a nature's gentleman 
seems to me to represent an attempt to steal the prestige 
that hangs around the name of gentleman and to apply 
it incorrectly to the possessor of certain moral and 
intellectual qualities. Why not call the latter a " good " 
or a " clever " man and remain true to the proper 
use of language? 

I see my friend, E. F. Benson, in one ,of his recent 
books, reproduces the remark that Browning' is re- 
puted to have made upon being asked if he liked 
Dobson's and his friends' poems : " I don't care about 
carved cherry-stones." That seems rather hard on 
Dobson, who was an exquisite worker in little, and 
has left us a sheaf of verse that will make a pleasant 
volume when coupled with Andrew Lang's Ballads 
in Blue CHinu. 

Aubrey de Vere was a poet of greater intensity ,than 
Lang or Dobson. I used to meet him' occasionally 
at Lady Constance Leslie's, where he would casually 
remark in the middle of a big luncheon party in the 
middle of the season : "I wish that people would' bear 
more clearly in mind than they do that the angels are 
always watching us and hear all we say." I could not 
refrain, I remember, from smiling when I thought of what 
must be their opinion of the average London luncheon 
party. He told me that he had known Robert Browning 



TENNYSON 197 

very well, and had carefully studied his works : " Un- 
fortunately he is not a poet, but he is a great thinker 
in tverse." I agree that Browning is greater as &. 
psychologist, for three-quarters of his work is just that, 
but there remains a quarter of it with true lyrical 
quality. When Croce finds time to deal with Browning 
as he has with Shakespeare, and apply to him^ the 
critical method of his ^Esthetic, the truth of this 
statement will be generally adtnitted. 

My uncle told me the followin^g little trifle about 
Tennyson which pleased me, arid has always ,had a 
niche in my memory. During his yachting expedition 
the Laureate was asked to recite Locksley Hall to a 
company of crowned heads and coronets. He cheerfully 
acceded to the request, beating time on the shoulder 
of the Emperpr of Russia. That, I think, is quite 
delightful, and I wish that all poets would remember 
to do likewise on parallel occasions. The minor ones 
might be put to death for lese majesfe, but they would 
perish in a good cause. 

A little later in the same year at the Hague, Mrs. 
Moreton, who was then lady -^n -waiting to the Duchess 
of Albany, told me that Tennyson, upon being asked 
by the Duchess to read one of thje Idylls of the King, 
said: "That is a royal plagiarism." "Why?" 
" Because Princess Mary asked me to read exactly the 
satae piece." 

I wish I had knowin Tennyson on his agreeable days, 
even to the extent Lord Sligo tells me that he knew him 
when a boy, living not far from the poet in the Isle of 
Wight. They were a party of irrepressible children, 
for whom the great m'an had a good deal of gruff 
affection. One of the chief employments of a half- 
holiday afternoon used to be to pretend to 'Ue tourists 



198 ON LEAVE IN ENGLAND 

lying in wait for the poet. As soon as he saw, or 
rather thought he saw his tormentors coming, the slouch 
hat would bob rapidly up and down above the hedge 
as he hastened away down the nearest by-path. They 
were convinced that Tennyson really rather counted upon 
bteing hunted by celebrity-mongers, apd would have 
felt it bitterly if their attentions had fallen off ! , 

I think it was my friend, Mrs. Woods, who toM' 
me that she was present when a determined young 
man decided to make the conquest of the Laureate. He 
button-holed him after dinner one summer's evening, 
and poured anecdote upon anecdote into Tennyson's 
unwilling ear. Tennyson merely grunted during this 
performance, and upon its conclusion spoke as follows : 
" Young man, I don't know who you are, and I can't 
hear what you say." The tone was such as to preclude 
further overtures. 

Among the habitues of York House was Lord Acton, 
who enjoyed a prodigious reputation, which I believe 
started with Gladstone. He used to spend almost the 
whole day reading at the Athen^um, and my uncle 
always referred to him as a well of knowledge. He 
was, however, a well down which it was very, very 
difficult to lower a bucket, and almost imppssible to 
draw it up again. The lectures that he gave at Caan- 
bridge, though full of learning, lacked that command 
of an immense material which only great writers like 
Croce possess. Acton was very apt to become discur- 
sive ; he was also allusive and assumed that his inter- 
locutor spent his whole time reading in a similar manner. 
He was a most amiable, kindly man, with little knowledge 
of persons, and I have seen him go out of his way 
to press a volume of metaphysics upon a Foreign Office 
clerk altogether alien to such studies. He was 



THE TEMPO HAS CHANGED 199 

omnivorous as a reader, and I remember once assisting 
him on with his coat ; out of the pocket protruded a 
blue cover. " A philosophical or historical pamphlet? " 
I inquired. "Oh no, that is Tit- Bits : I always make 
a point of reading it, there is so much! in it that I 
do not know and cannot find anywhere else." He had 
nothing of the artist about him, as is, I think, in- 
dicated by his having his enormous library of books 
all bound exactly alike at ninepence a volume — dark 
cloth with white label for the title. I think it would 
drive me mad to have all my favourite authors gazing 
at me in uniform, like convicts on parade. 

Another friend of my uncle's, Lord de Tabley, had, 
on the contrary, very 'keen poetic and artistic feeling, 
and has left some verse which, if not of the highest 
quality, reflects at any rate a lofty and generous soul. 

On his return from India, my ufic]^ interested himself 
in the old dining and literary clubs and societies 
of London. He was a member of most of these, such 
as the Roxburgh Club, to which we owe some exquisite 
reprints of early literature. His contribution was, I 
think, a history of the club, which is now quite out 
of print. He was also a rnember of Grillon's, the well- 
known breakfast club, where notable hob-nobbers were 
Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, Lord Justice Sir James, 
Stephen, Lord Arthur Russell and many another 
worthy and learned gentleman eloquent in his (te?C) 
cups. That splendid galaxy of leading Victorians has 
given way to a Georgian society, which I shall never 
venture to criticize, beyond saying that the tempo of 
life seems to have changed and many of the old values 
to have declined, giving place to others, which seem 
to me less attractive. 

Sir George Errington was one of the most agreeable 



200 ON LEAVE IN ENGLAND 

frequenters of York House. He was a Catholic, and 
I believe the first to go on a semi-official taission to 
the Pope. He used often to entertain me at the 
Cosmopolitan, which was another institution favoured 
by my uncle, now, I think, no longer existing. 

The Club, founded by Dr. Johnson, of course, still 
flourishes, and in my uncle had a faithful and devoted 
honorary secretary. He wrote a history of the institu- 
tion. I remember my uncle telling: me that before the 
Turf Club had fixed upon its present appellation, that 
of " The Club " had been selected in ignorance of the 
existence of "The Club." It was pointed out to them 
that they were just a leetle too late in their choice of 
that title — about a couple of hundred years. 

The Cosmopolitan possessed a " habitation and 
abode," but I do not think that The Club, with its 
ancient records and exiguous list of members has ever 
been otherwise than a migfrant from one hJotel to another. 
There were wonderful tales about missing Prime 
Ministers running up against strayed Lord Chancellors 
in strange hotels, and Chief Justices colliding with 
Poets Laureate in obscure corridors, all vainly seeking 
rendezvous for the dinner. 

The mention of Lord Arthur Russell reminds me 
of the pleasant parties given by Lady Arthur during 
the season in Audley Square. Lady Arthur was a 
Mademoiselle de Peyronet, and had the true tradition 
of the salon, though she suffered to some extent from: 
reserve of manner, not so comtnon among the French 
as among ourselves. But the receptions were very 
pleasant, and there was some really good literary and 
historical talk mixed up with a mild percentage of 
social frivolities. " Let us talk about string," used to 
be the signal for a turning of the attention to dances 



HARRY CUST AND THE SOULS 201 

oi the day. There was always a substratum of solid 
achievement among the men who frequented these 
parties — the merely social were not invited. They 
differed in this respect from those given by a charming 
and beautiful Duchess during the babyhood of the 
present century, though these, too, were supposed to 
be literary and artistic. On one occasion, her Grace 
was found by some of her guests perusing a sonnet 
which had been sent to her by an aspirant for her 
favour. " It's quite pretty," she said, glancing through 
it, "but I wonder why he u^ill call me' Psish? " Upon 
its being pointed out to her that the word was usually 
pronounced Psych6, and in classical literature stood 
for the soul, she asked wha^t stood for the body in 
classical literature. 

Talking of Psyche, about this time the much-vaunted 
" Souls " came into prominence and prospered exceed- 
ingly until, as someone neatly observed, they became 
the Slips. Harry Cust was well-known as one of the 
protagonists. I used often to talk with him, and some- 
times lunched in Delahaye Street, whence they migrated 
tp Kensington. He has already appeared as captain 
of the Oppidans when I was at Eton, and take him 
all round and at his best, he stood out head and 
shoulders above his own generation and the one that 
followed, as a talker. Not perhaps as a writer, though 
black and white pearl sonnets and other poetical efforts 
had distinct quality. Harry was the spoilt child of 
fortune and the fair sex. His good looks and clever- 
ness and social position were between them the undoing 
of him as an eminent man. He was too brilliant on 
the (Surface ever to concentrate upon any subject 
with sufficient intensity to acquire great reputation. 
Like a shallow, rapid stream he ran through exquisite 



202 ON LEAVE IN ENGLAND 

tropical country, revelling in the flowers that adorned 
his banks, and in the birds of rare plumage that 
jostled one another in the air as they flew; to drink 
of his waters. That touch of spoilt-child, petulant 
audacity was most attractive and entertaining when one 
was not oneself the victim of it. As editor of the 
Pall Mall Gazette for Mr. Astor, this quality really 
made the paper an immense success. His advertisements 
and leaders took the breath away and the penny out 
of the pocket. I used often to stroll with him from 
the St. James's Club, when we happened to lunch' .there, 
to Charing Cross Road and enter the editorial sanctum. 
Occasionally he would insist upon my writing a review 
for him, and I remember once becoming enthusiaSttic 
over a work upon Emblems and Charms, by Rolfe, the 
British Consul at Naples. Harry wrote me that he was 
delighted with my review, and asked to see the ,book. 
I sent it to him and could neve^r get it back, though 
generally he was given to pitching twenty or thirty, 
volumes away at a timie as unworthy the notice, of the, 
" P.M.G." He would glancfe at the title, apply a 
highly coloured epithet to the author, and then hurl the 
unfortunate volume to the- end of the long roomy where 
I suppose it was eventually garnered by the Oififi,ce boy. 
as " perks." Those were vastly amusing days when 
Harry reigned over the Pall Mall. 1 remetnber the 
terrible commotion there was among the initiated when 
he decided that Mr. Astor's own literary productions 
were not up to the standard of Mr. Astor's paper and 
resolutely refused to print thems ! He was, of course, 
quite right, but the situation was certainly — exceptional. 
Finally, as of course he knew !must be the ,case, he was 
fired out ; but while it lasted it was as gorgeous — ^as 
fireworks . 



"MONSIEUR" AND "MADAME" 203 

There was a rival brotherhiood, known as the Worms, 
started in opiposition to the Souls. They were a gay 
and musical group who frankly enjoyed life without 
any wonderful poses. Their headquarters, for a short 
time, was " Monsieur and Madame's " i.e., Monsieur and 
Madame Blumenthal's in Kensington Gore. " Mon- 
sieur " was a musician, and arranged the most 
charming coincertjS. Madatoe was altpigether (she 
said) unmusical, and inivitpd the most charming people 
to attend them. " Moinsieur " used to takje his stand 
at thte drawing-ropim door, with its array of gilded 
chairs, and whisppr the dramatic " hush ! " prelude to 
swieetest sounds as rustling skirts and rippling smiles 
settled silently — and hastily — down to enjoy. Then 
followed the dramatic moments of supper and un- 
restrained babble. The cream of artistic social London 
was to be seen at these parties, fotr monsieur and 
madame were very much the fashion, and to be ,inviteid 
to dwell for a season with them at their Swiss chalet 
was to be honoured exceedingly; both as man — and 
Worm. 

I have met several Carmlens off the Stage, but none 
in my opinion, either off it or on it,, equalled Calve, 
who, I api glad to say, is still among' us. She had the 
temperament of the role and sang and acted it perfectly. 
That she carried the temperamental quality into ordinary 
life I only realized upon one occasion, in 'ninety-three, 
when there was a matinee for the Foreign Press 
Association Fund. I came with a friend who had 
offered to accompany any singer who might have been 
without her pianist. We were duly introduced behind 
the scenes of the Palace Theatre, and almost at once 
the psychic temperature rose. Calve is sitting! on a 
bench facing me as I enter the artist's room. ; She 



204 ON LEAVE IN ENGLAND 

is beating a tattoo with her crimson shoe and is 
evidently impatient. Introduced, I make one or two 
remarks, not quite banal perhaps, and then withdraw 
to a safe distance from this distinguished volcano. A 
moment after enter Mascagni. She spdngs up and 
with an eloquent " Ah, Mascagni ! " thro wis herself 
theatrically jnto the composer's arms. He plays up 
admirably, and the ceiling becomes the sky of Italy. I 
am then presented to the Maestro and we have a little 
conversation. The manager approaches the diva with 
infinite precautions. Would she be so kind as to sing 
next, or next but one? Then occurs a really fine 
eruption pi French and Italian, hurled partly at the 
obsequious manager, partly at the absent accompanist. 
" Non, je ne chanterai pas ! " Vainly is Monsieur Du 
Sautoy suggested, a perfect accompanist. No ! there 
is but one man that treads the earth able to 
accompany the diva — and he is absent. Her eyes flame ; 
she stamps and whirls round the room' as though 
expecting the absent one to pop up from' under one 
of the benches. Then a really magnificent exit on 
the top note (of anger, not of melody) : " The world 
shall ring with his treatment of mie to-morro\V " (this 
in French). All of us, including the Maestro, look 
very contrite as she disappears up the stairs to the 
exit. I turn to Mademoiselle Susanne Reichenberg, 
who is to do a duologue and is seekingi " mon Coquelin." 
The afternoon proceeds and the applause from' the 
front of the house reaches every comer of the theatre. 
There is much talent in the cause of the Foreign Press 
Association. Even Calve is forgotten. Suddenly a 
wonderful voice at my elbow : " Eh bien. Monsieur, 
vous voyez, je suis revenue " — and there, indeed, she 
is — Calve the diva, radiant and wreathed in the roses of 



MR. LABOUCHERE "PROCEEDS" 205 

an immense bouquet with a silver band'. The fit of 
anger has vanished; the sky is serene ; she accepts 
the offer of the more than competent Du Sautoy, who 
accompanies her in Carmen selections — and when these 
are over the Comte de Paris has split his right hand 
glove applauding, and comes tumbling down the absurdly 
narrow staircase to congratulate her. 

iWhat it is to be a diva in her prime ! 

But I feel that I should really be packing my, 
penates and " proceeding " to the Hague, where I am 
overdue. As I do so I may just mention iHenry 
Labouchere's original method of " proceeding " to 
Pekin from Petersburg, when he was in the Diplomatic 
Service. He was expected by several boats in the 
Far East, but did not put in an appearance. The 
Foreign Office began to get anxious about him and 
telegraphed to Petersburg to know when he had started 
and where he was. No answer for some weeks, either 
from Petersburg or from his London address. At 
last a letter reached the Office from Nijni Novgorod, 
dt was from Henry Labouchere, saying that he had 
striven to obey the orders of the Office and " proceed " 
to Pekin, but being short of funds and having received 
no draft from the Office, his progress might be slow, 
as he had decided to walk to Pekin, and as they saw 
had reached Nijni Novgo,rod. In the course of a year 
or so, shoe leather and weather pertnitting, he hoj>ed 
to reach his new post. 

As a letter of resignation, this was original, like 
so much done by this quaint, sardonic personage, 
whose great dread in life was to be caught doing ia 
good action. He loved to pile up the agony of his 
own iniquities — base desertion of friends, cynical con- 
tempt for women, etc., and I have often chuckled 



206 ON LEAVE IN ENGLAND 

intimately at his dinner-parties, to observe inquiring- 
strangers hardly able to swallowt their Supreme de 
Cotelettes Soubise for horror at the enormities of their 
host. That these were largely imaginary goes without 
saying, and his kind deeds and kindness of heart werje 
carefully concealed behind the highly polished exterior 
of a man of the world. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE HAGUE AND DIPLOMACY 

The Hague — Sir Horace Rumbold — Sir Francis Bertie — Colleagues at the 
Hague— Baron Tomtit— Lionel Bonham — My Cousin Sir Evelyn Grant 
Duff, British Minister at Berne — Prince Poniatowski and King Milan — 
Storm in a Delft Teacup — Prince or Waiter ? — Marquis of Dufferin — 
Paris Embassy — Too Great to Care — Garibaldi's Slipper — Cult of the 
Turf. 

I SHALL always remember my first meeting Labouchere 
after I had been writing dramatic criticism for Truth for 
seven years, during which he had never set foot in the 
office while I was there. " It appears you are on 
my staff : I am delighted to make your acquaintance. 
And pray, how is the British stage? I think we may 
confidently hope for the worst." 

.What a raconteur he was ! Essentially non-dialectic 
however. It was far better not to pull him up, hut 
to murmur at intervals in a shocked tone : " How 
very dreadful ! Really, Mr. Labouchere, I should not 
have thought you capable of behaving in that way " — 
or something of the sort. Then the old gentleman 
(for I knew him only in his lonely Florentinq villa, 
retired from the world) was in the seventh heaven 
of delight and would try to make eyes come yet wider 
open with astonishing revelations of his own astuteness 
and of base advantp.ge taken of those highly placed. 
It was really a kind of inverted Romanticism : Labby 
loved to boast his mythological misdeeds as others 
their equally mythological virtues. 

He told me that fifty years ago he had seen Florence 
as a poor young man with his future to make. There 
he had decided, if possible, to retire in his old age, 

207 



208 THE HAGUE AND DIPLOMACY 

and had exactly carried out his programme, selling his 
house in Westminster for the exact sum which the Villa 
Voronzoff had cost. 

While I have been holding forth about the former 
proprietor of Truth, the vessel which is to land me at 
Rotterdam has been ploughing the waves, and lest any 
reader should fail to discover any close connection with 
Labby and the Netherlands, 11 beg to point out that 
he had numerous Dutch relations, who still flourish 
in the Hague and at Amsterdam, so that this closely 
knit narrative cannot be accused of wandering off the 
path, though the writer pleads guilty of going the 
longest and the most flowery way to his destination. 

On arrival at the Hague, I found myself in an 
entirely new world, of which I took some little time 
to fully understand the manners as an anecdote, which 
I shall shortly (in every sense) recount, will show. 

My new Chief, Sir Horace Rumbold, was charming ; 
I always found him excellent company and enjoyed his 
hospitality. He never burdened one with dispatches 
to copy, and when he had ascertained that one fully 
sympathized with him' in his hatred and detestation pf 
Sir Francis Bertie, then a power at the Foreign Office, 
all was well. I hastened to do this at once, although 
I had never been acquainted with Sir Francis (after- 
wards Lord Bertie). Sir Horace was obviously 
a nervous, quick-tempered man, keen to resent any- 
thing like a slight or injury, and I can well imagine 
how his brown eyes must have flashed when they met 
those of Sir Francis ; how his slim, poplar-like figure 
must have swayed with rage as they cut verbally into 
one another's vitals. There was a story of Sir, Francis 
at the Foreign Office which always tickled me and is, 
I believe, perfectly true. It was simply this : he 



THE TRAIN INCIDENT 209 

was in the habit of cursing and swearing at his 
subordinates, using especially the most violent terms 
to a newly arrived junior, which must be supplied by 
the imagination ad lib. This went on for some days, 
until Sir Francis came into the room with some dispatch 
which he asserted in the usual unmeasured language 
had been miscopied or misconstrued by his subordinate. 
When he had finished, what was his astonishment to 
see the said clerk silently removing his jacket and pro- 
ceeding to tuck up his sleeves. iWhen this had been done, 
the young man spoke. " Sir Francis, I am going to 
thrash you, or try to thrash you for your gross insolence 
to me, unless you immediately offer me your apologies. 
I know quite well that I shall have to leave the Service, 
but I (Would rather that to, being sworn at by a, damned 
bully in season and out." 

Sir Francis gasped with amazetneint : a long' course 
of unimpieded oaths had never produced such a result 
as this. When he had sufficiently recovered, he 
tendered his hand to the young fellow with sincere 
apologies and backed his career in future for all he 
was worth. 

The pendant to this is a little story ab'out dear Sir 
Horace, who always had my sympathy in this as in 
other matters. An important Britannic personage was 
about to leave the Hague. Sir Horace wished to bid 
her good-bye at the railway station. Owing to a 
mistake of his coachman, he was set down there when 
the train was on the point of starting. He rushed 
along the platform to the barrier, where he was con- 
fronted by a stalwart and obdurate ticket collector, 
who insisted upon his producing his " platform ticket." 
Vainly Sir Horace protested that he would purchase 
the ticket (price a halfpenny) when the train had left, 

14 



210 THE HAGUE AND DIPLOMACY 

but the man refused to let him past without one. This 
was too much for the excitable Minister Plenipotentiary, 
who was not without some knowledge of boxing, 
gathered in the course of a chequered youth. He let 
him have a left to the jaw, which sent the obdu- 
rate one sprawling his full length' on the platform. 
Of course a crowd collected and there was the " divil 
to pay," what with the outraged dignity of the man 
and his innumerable relatives and the (justifiable) pro- 
testations of the Dutch Government. The matter was 
finally settled, like so many others, with a cheque to bearer, 
and the Netherlands consented to retain Sir Horace 
as Plenipotentiary. Lady Rumb'old was a suave, quiet 
person, who might be described as the Ladyship from 
Sloane Street, on the analogy of that excellent sobriquet 
applied to Ralli, who used to be known as " The 
Belgravian." He rarely emerged from its precincts. 
Her Ladyship was altogether Sloane Street at its best 
and brightest when the ladies are shopping at the 
Knightsbridge end — at her worst she was the first 
turning to the left. 

My colleagues at the Hagtie were most agreeable, 
pleasant people, and for their sakes one would have 
liked to spend years at the Hague. Head of the 
Chancellery was Charles Des Graz, my good and gay 
friend, afterwards Minister to Montenegro and to Servia, 
and then in South America. A Cambridge running 
blue, he was hard to beat on the tennis court ; invincible 
at that other court which has no rules except those 
of wintiing if possible — I refer to the court held when- 
ever ladies are present. He and I used to go over 
to Klingendaal to the hospitable De Brienens for 
luncheons and lawn-tennis and dinner-parties galore. 
The Baroness was well known both at the Hague and 



BARON TOMTIT 211 

in London society — she dwelt in Belgrave Square — the 
Baron was a man of the world, just as much at home 
in the Bachelors' Club as in the Aristocrat's Club at 
the Hague. The Dutch used to say he liked London 
too much, which meant that he actually liked a 
change from their society. The aristocrats at the 
Hague were tremendous sticklers for, dignity, and I 
remember the Baron once telhng me that Baron van 
Huysum van Kopperdinjk van Oolenstraad (name 
imaginary) had repKed to one of his invitations to come 
and dine, with a refusal based upon the omission upon 
the envelope containing the invitation of one of the 
Baron's titles, and a reference to his frequent absences 
in England as the probable reason for this omission. 
De Brienen at once replied, regretting the omission of 
the title, but adding a postscript to this effect : " On 
glancing again at your envelope I see you have omitted 
two of my titles : this, no doubt, is due to dwelHng 
too long in the same place." 

Des Graz inducted me into the society of the Hague, 
and we went round together showering cards ion 
colleagues and notables, as one is bound to do in 
diplomacy. Sir George and Lady Bonham were also 
most kind in presenting me to the chief Court officials, 
including the Lord Chamberlain, a certain Baron whose 
name sounded exactly like Baron Tomtit van Hammer 
and Tongs van Nastywitch. And his name, especially the 
central part of it, did not belie him, as you shall hear. 
I had not been, many weeks at the Hague when there 
was a party at the Palace, at (which I was dtily presented 
to Queen Wilhelmina, a most seductive little girl at 
this period, going' round the diplomatic circle with her 
long hair falling over her white frock, and neat little 
white shoes and stockings. She had brief conversa- 



212 THE HAGUE AND DIPLOMACY 

tions with almost everyone and was followed, but at 
a considerable distance, by one of her ladies-in-waiting. 
With me she discussed skating, and I remember that 
once the subject was mooted I entered with her Majesty 
upon the chief points of the art, ancient and modern, 
roller or blade, English or Continental style, with so 
much vim and erudition and detail that I believe 
we should still be there if a voice suggesting a 
further move in the direction of my neighbour (the 
Italian Secretary) had not obliged me to cut it short'. 
Still, some ice was cut and I always enjoyed the 
occasional glimpses of an Alice who had not needed 
to go through the looking glass to make a wonderland 
of her palace. I remember the sinking at heart with 
which I learned that she had become affianced to ;a 
German . 

The Bonhams had a delightful family, and their 
eldest son, Lionel, who was later in the Brigade of 
Guards, was one of my best and warmest friends. 
Many a wild evening we spent at the old Savoy — so 
much more homey than the present vast expanse — 
inside and outside the Pinafore Room. Lionel married 
a charming and beautiful Miss Gaskell. This lady was 
very nervous and, I believe, gave him a good deal iof 
anxiety as to her health : she travelled to Japan upon 
one occasion, and the last time that ever I saw |him 
was at Naples,, years after I had left the career. 
He had just gone to see her off on this lengthy trip 
and had somehow somewhere discovered that I was 
in Naples. He came and rapped on my door in the 
Hotel Vesuvio when I was busied with the writing of 
my Song of the Stewarts (Prelude). He was to leave 
the next morning for Macedonia as head of the Inter- 
national Police at that time looking after the Macedonian 



BERNE DURING THE WAR 213 

salad — always a pretty mess. Something in the 
Macedoine disagreed with poor Lionel, for he fell ill 
and died there within six weeks of our last meeting. 
We sat up till daybreak that evening and made all 
the joyous memories of old London nights Hve again, 
till we parted with a handclasp on the very top note 
of gaiety and good fellowship. Neither of us of course 
dreamed that we should never meet again. Thus is 
it well to part. 

Edith Bonham, who was later married to my first 
cousin, Sir Evelyn Grant Duff, K.C.M.G., was a girl 
of fifteen when 1 was at the Hague, attractive 'and 
lively. One could not be expected to perceive the 
latent force of character which enabled her so admir- 
ably to second her husband's efforts to cope with the 
appalUng difficulties presented by the situation at Berne 
upon the outbreak of war. The Staff was quite 
insufficient and the Foreign Office did not strengthen it 
appreciably. One item alone would have been sufficient 
to overwhelm ordinary folk, and that was the enormous 
number of tourists left stranded high and dry in 
Switzerland, either without funds or with funds nearly 
exhausted. No banks would cash letters of credit or 
look at cheques. They simply swarmed round the 
British Legation, looking upon that as the last plank 
between them and starvation. I remember a long 
telegram reaching Aberdeenshire when I was at Delgaty 
from some Aberdeenshire acquaintances, begging and 
imploring my father to telegraph a request to his 
nephew, the Minister, to give special attention to the 
senders of the telegram, w'ho were using their last 
penny to send it. The tourist question was but one 
of many with which they had to deal, not the least 
being the attempt to assassinate the British Minister 



214 THE HAGUE AND DIPLOMACY 

Plenipotentiary, by causing a heavy mirror to fall upon 
him as he sat at table on Christmas night. He was 
saved by the mere chance of accepting an invitation 
to dine out, that very afternoon. The heavy mirror 
crashed down upon his empty seat. The cords by 
which it was hung were found to have been rubbed 
almost througji so as to give way within a short time. 
It was traced to a German in their employ in whom 
confidence was misplaced. The Germans hated the 
British Minister with a special brand of hatred, and 
I must say he had given them some reason for this, 
with his caustic and stinging' remarks. He knew them 
in fact thoroughly well. He had long lived in Germany 
and once won a beer-drinking prize at Heidelberg. 
I forget the total of mugs lOf beer, buf I remember 
that the number definitely convinced mfe that the less 
could contain the greater— in German beer -drinking. 

Lady Grant Duff is one of the very few women 
who have ever been thanked by name in the House 
of Commons for their patriotic work. 

Well, to return to the Hague in the early 'ninetiels, 
I must say that it was very pleasant, and I often dwell 
upon or rather traverse it in memory. Few people,! 
of my acquaintance at least, seem to know how to 
enjoy their memories. They are apt to dwell upon 
some one point and to contemplate that alone, pleasant 
or unpleasant, whereas with the help of a date or two;, 
it is possible to get the general sense of a period that 
one has traversed, all of it tinged with the glamour 
of the past. Thus I can any day invite myself to join 
one of the dinner-parties at the Legation and g'o on 
from there to the Club of the Nobles, where we played 
or watched the playing of the game of windt — I can 
evoke the whole environment — crimson -plushed flunkeys 



SMALL PUNTERS 215 

with' white hair, candelabra guttering occasionally, dis- 
sipated young and old men staking' it with the one 
phrase : Je vous fais votre reste. " I bet you what 
you have on the table." Stakes used to vary there from 
a humble gold piece to thousands of francs, which; 
reminds me of a delightful mot at another ultra-aristo- 
cratic club, the Certle de la Rue Royale, at Paris. 
King Milan of Servia was taking* the bank at baccarat 
and facing all comers with unlimited stakes. Big and 
little punters were crowding round the table and stakes 
varied from a louis to a hundred thousand francs. The 
bank was having a bad time and King Milan had been 
paying out on both sides for several deals. At opej 
corner sat Prince Poniatowski of ancient Polish 
royal descent. He was staking a humble louis and 
winning it every time during the run against the bank. 
At last the King became annoyed at having to pay 
out this minute surh' every time after distributing 
millions among the big punters, and remarked rather 
testily as he paid Poniatowski : " What a bore these 
small punters are with their eternal louis stakes." 
" When your Majesty has been dethroned even a year 
or two, you will find it difficult to raise a louis to play : 
the Poniatowskis have been dethroned two hundred 
years." 

Charles Des Graz was the colleague of whom I sawi 
most at the 'Hague, as we used to dine together several 
nights in the week, and it was then that we had our 
discussions about novels as mere pastime and novels 
as art. I believe that, like many people, he 
still looks upon the novel as a means of passing 
half an hour pleasantly or of getting off to sleep. 
Labouchere and many other successful practical 
men whom I have known had just this view) and I 



216 THE HAGUE AND DIPLOMACY 

suppose that the vast majority of novels produced have 
no higher aim. T have no axe to grind, not being a 
noveHst, but feel the highest respect for the genius 
of certain novelists, which comtes next to the best poetry, 
and indeed is poetry. The rest are mere money- 
makers and where successful are in the same category 
as boots and waterproofs that keep out the water. 

My adventure with Tits van Hammer and Tongen 
van Nasty witch wbuld have made a good beginning for 
a novel, dealing with the diplomatic career and the 
extreme care necessary in dealing with officials at minor 
Courts. Both Sir George Bonham' and Charles Des 
Graz introduced me to the Lord Chamberlain bearing 
the above malsonant titles, so the deed was doubly 
done before his persecutions begun. Very soon after 
one of the royal parties I heard indirectly that this 
Lord Chamberlain was deeply incensed at my neglect- 
ing to be introduced to him : I at once told several 
Dutch friends that this was not the case, and that I 
had made a point of it, as witnessed my excellent 
colleagues. He was a small, grisly personage, with 
a short, rather ragged beard and blue eyes, covered 
with decorations, and i remember that he spoke very 
inferior French. Needless to say, I did not spread 
abroad this description of him, but let it be known 
everywhere that certainly even if a newly arrived 
attach^ to the Court of St. James's had not been 
presented to the Earl of Lathom, who was then Lord 
Chamberlain, I was quite; sure he would not have made 
a fuss about it. 'I, on the other hand, having been 
presented, there was really no ground whatever for 
the accusation of haughty contempt of Holland by the 
proud Britain. But for weeks there was no end to 
this affair, and at every luncheon -party and every ball 



PRINCE OR WAITER? 217 

it was sure to be: served up with a simper for sauce. 
Finally, I went up to the old man myself and gave 
him my full name and address in London, Scotland 
and the Hague,. 

il beUeVfe if I were to return to the Hague to-day, 
the grandson of old Hammer and Tongs would let it 
generally be known that I had not been presented 
to his grandfather in the strict tenm's oi the protocol. 

This reminds me of an amusing incident that occurred 
some years ago at a party in London, where a frivolous 
girl remarked of a certain attach^ of Embassy that 
she did not believe he really was Prince of Strada 
Ferrata and Duke of GalHcia, but ai waiter. At the 
next party, at the same house, she found the sajmte 
attach^ waiting for her at the top of the stairs by the 
hostess. She shook hands with him and was going 
to pass on into the ballroom, but he held her firmly 
and said : " You remarked at the last dance that I 
was not the Prince of Strada Ferrata and Duke of 
GalHcia, but a waiter." The poor girl blushed to the 
roots of her hair, but could not deny it. "I am now 
going to prove to you that you were wrong." There- 
upon he led her up to an elderly gentleman bearing 
a broad ribbon across his shirt. " This is my 

Ambassador, his Excellency, Count ." A long list 

of titles followed while he held her tight by the hand. 
" And this gentleman," said the Ambassador, bowing 
to the young lady, " is certainly the Prince of Strada 
Ferrata, Duke of GalUcia, attached to my Embassy." 

The penance was not over yet, for still holding her 
hand firmly, the Prince led her to a younger man with 
iron -gray hair standing near the Ambassador, to whom 
he introduced her and she again received the assurance 
of the Prince's identity. This was repeated in exactly 



218 THE HAGUE AND DIPLOMACY 

the same termfe with all the members of the Embassy, 
who had assembled for that purpose at the ball. 

Unity of sentiment is of course of great importance 
in an Embassy, and I think it was my, father who 
once told me that in his experience at Petersburg at 
some big official dinner-party certain remarks rather 
uncomplimentary to Great Britain were made in one 
of the speeches, whereupon my godfather. Lord Napder 
and Ettrick, who w^s present with the whole of his Staff, 
and had a habit of carrying a large silk handkerchief 
loose in his hand, suddenly rose to his feet and 
remarked to Paget, the First Secretary of Embassy : 
" This won't do, Paget ; this will never do ; come 
along Paget." And with this he marched magnificently 
out of the room agitating the celebrated silk hand- 
kerchief and followed by his entire Staff. ; 

Which Paget of the many Pagets that have been, 
are, and will be, was this one, I cannot say, but can 
merely admire that successful family and hope to meet 
more and more of them. I was once magnificently 
entertained by four brothers Paget, including the late 
gallant Admiral Sir Alfred and General Paget in 
Hanover Square. They, I believe, were of the illus- 
trious house of Anglesea, but another good friend of 
mine^ Sir Richard Paget, upon being asked by one 
interested in pedigree if he were " an Anglesea Paget," 
is said to have replied : " Oh dear no ; we are little 
Pagets of our own." 

My flitting from the Hague took place by night, and 
in disguise, lest I were seized by emissaries of Count 
Tits von Hammer and Tongen, and thrown into a 
dungeon for not being presented to him' en regie. It 
was quite pleasant to tread the pavement of Piccadilly 
after being so long* a promenader of the sands at 



MAY I SPY ON YOU? 219 

Sceveningen (pronounce Scrravenha^en, something like 
a rook cawing), that seaside resort near the Hague, 
which is so much pleasant er than it sounds in Dutch. 

One of the first persons I ran into Was an old 
friend who afterwards became distinguished in the law. 
He has often regaled mte with spice from the courts, 
but on this occasion gave me details as to his intrigue 
with a certain well-known lady, which wlas being closely 
watched by a certain private detective firm employed 
by another Well-known lady. Finally this got on his 
nerves, and he decided to put a stop to it. In order to 
do this, he told his cabman to draw up suddenly after 
driving fifty yards from his rooms. My friend jumped 
up, and there sure enough, just behind, was the private 
detective, an expert runner, a little out of breath, but 
caught in the act. " ' What the h — 11 do you mean by 
following me about like this.' ' I beg* pardon, sir, 
I'm a poor man, sir, obliged to do it, sir, to earn my 
bread. I'm sure you wiill understand me, sir, because 
you and me's both of the same profession .' " This 
ilovely naivete infuriated my friend, but he eventually 
relented, and made a business arrangement With the 
man, " who is not half a bad felloW." " I said to him : 
* You may as well earn my money as wfell as her lady- 
ship's so you go and Watch her when you're not watching 
me, and I'll pay you the same.' The man was delighted, 
and ended by asking : ' May I follow you to-night, 
sir? ' ' Certainly, I'm dining at my Club'.' " 

I remained some months in London before proceed- 
ing to my next post, which was Paris, where my future 
Chief was the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava. I had 
already met him at York House, and as an old friend 
and colleague of my uncle, he Was very iglad to welcome 
me in Paris. In my wildest dreams, however, I nfever 



220 THE HAGUE AND DIPLOMACY 

expected to receive such a letter as reached me from' 
the Paris Embassy soon after my return from Paris. 



British Embassy, 
Paris, 

July 5, 1894. 
Dear Mr. Douglas Ainslie, 

We are entirely overcome with delight at the prospect 
of your honouring this Embassy with your presence. 

Speaking for myself, I look forward with the greatest pleasure 
to seeing you upon my Staff and the Chancellery echoes my own 
eagerness. When will it suit you to come to us ? This must of 
course entirely depend upon your convenience, but the sooner the 
better. 

DUFFERIN AND AVA. 



That was Lord Dufferin's way. He was exceed- 
ingly proud of his Sheridan blood, and no doubt the 
Sheridans have often kissed the Blarney Stone since 
the days of Richard Brinsley and the iSchool for Scandal. 
Lord Dufferin, however, did not bely his flowery phrases, 
even when one was in actual intercourse with him, and 
although the type of letter, of which I have given a 
specimen above, at first made one suspect the Ambas- 
sador of having a little game at one's expense, so 
habitual was this mode of address with him, that I 
believe it had become "second nature." In respect 
of this phrase, perhaps some may not immediately recall 
Fontenelle's witty comment : " If that is second nature, 
I should like to knojW what is first." 

Lord Dufferin had come nearly to the end of a dis- 
tinguished career before he Went to Paris, and when 
I was on his Staff he was obviously a tired man. Yet, 
as I say, he maintained his marvellously florid phrase- 
ology up to the last, so far as I Was concerned, and 
ladies have told me that he always wrote to them', 
whatever their age, between eighteen and eighty, in 



LORD DUFFERIN 221 

exactly the same Way — like an ardent lover anxious 
and willing to obey their least behest. My uncle always 
used to say that Lord Dufferin's best work had been 
done in India and Canada. His Letters from High 
Latitudes date back to Petersburg; days and were among 
my earliest studies. 

Lord Dufferin had a considerable and' justifiable con- 
fidence in the security of his own position, and the 
story is told of his being repeatedly seen at Con- 
stantinople, when he was Ambassador there, walking 
with a Levantine banker of rather doubtful antecedents. 
Upon being warned of the man's undesirability by some 
well-meaning busybody ^(such as always crop upi to 
do the obviously better left alone). Lord Dufferin 
replied : " Yes, yes, I know, and have known for some 
time all you tell me about Monsieur Stokopotopoulos, 
but, on the other hand, it gives him immense satisfac- 
tion to be seen Walking with me, and as it cannot 
possibly do me any harm, I have decided to continue 
the practice. I need hardly add how extremely grate- 
ful I am to you for your amiable and well-timed 
intervention." 

Lord Frederick Hamilton tells us that his father, 
the Duke of lAbercom, used to 'be called " Old Splendid," 
no doubt a happy nickname for a grand seigneur, and 
on the same analogy, " Old Scent Bottle," exactly 
conveys the first impression one received from Lord 
Dufferin, either personally or in correspondence. I 
can hardly think of any more agreeable sobriquet to 
wear in the historical march-past — ^most nicknames have 
a tendency to convey the reverse of an agreeable odour. 
But I don't think Lord Dufferin wbuld have liked to 
know he was called Old Scent Bottle : he would have 
liked to change the epithet, for he Was a lady's man 



222 THE HAGUE AND DIPLOMACY 

to the last. The wittiest nickname applied to any 
Ambassador that I hjave met is also one of the wickedest, 
"(Genial Judas." It is a complete description, and 
contains the history of many hopies dashed. 

Among the occupants of the Paris Chancellery, wlien 
I finally made up my mind to leave London, were 
[(Sir) Walter Townley, head of the Chancellery, '^(Sir) 
Ronald Graham, now our Ambassador at Rome, and 
the late Sir Constantine Phipps. Grahiami and I Were 
[(and are) excellent friends, and I w'as delighted to 
be one of those to give him a send-off dinner at 
the Prince's Restaurant upon his appointment to 
Rome. Many colleagues, including more than one 
Cabinet Minister, were present, and several were 
eloquent. But the clou of the evening was certainly 
tTie Duke of Sutherland's speech. His Grace did a 
short preliminary canter through the usual commonplace 
compliments, and then, to the astonishment of many, 
after a brief reference to Garibaldi and his visit to 
Stafford House, suddenly produced from' his pocket — 
an old slipper — and wlaved it round his head, exclaiming : 
" This is the slipper Garibaldi Wore when he was 
wounded and staying with my grandfather." English- 
men gulped down their emotion, and the many Italians 
present would have liked to fall upon one another's 
necks, but aWare that they were in London, contrived 
to look rather less moved than the English. 

Of Constantine Phipps, who was afterwards Minister 
at Brussels, it may be said that he was great at racing 
and Grand Duchesses. The latter wtere always coming 
and going from^ Paris to Mionte Carlo and, I believe, 
occasionally one even went to Russia, but wherever 
they wfere going, it was certain that a faithful) little 
Phipps Would be waiting at the Gare de I'Est or at the 



BEEN RATTING, RAIKES? 223 

Gare de Lyon— as the case might be — with a bouquet. 
It was thought well to be friends with' Russia in those 
distant days, when a Grand Duchess meant something, 
and, therefore, the floral activities of Phipps wiere 
perhaps not so futile as they may appear. 

The sacred cult of the racecourse Was held in high 
honour at the Embassy, and it wjas understood ^hat those 
members of the Staff who did not go racing made up 
for their lack of energy by doingi the wiorkj of those 
who did. Graham and I must have consequently 
covered a good many acres of dispatches of an after- 
noon. But the work was not very arduous, despite 
Lord Dufferin's declaration that the hours of the 
Embassy were exactly 'twenty-four per diem. 

jWhen Phipps wtent to Brussels he was always dashing 
over to England for som'e race meeting or other, and 
I remember his appearing in the Royal Enclosure one 
Ascot week, and manoeuvring himself under the eye of 
King Edward. " Well Phipps, why aint you at your 
post? " was all th,e conversation he enjoyed, for the 
King, having thus recognized his Minister to Belgium, 
turned on his heel to converse with somtebbdy else. 
This remark is paralleled foi^ brevity with another he 
made at Doncaster, in the Lady's Stand, to a friend 
who had dared to appear on Leger Day in a bowler 
hat instead of the orthodox topper : " Hullo Raikes,^ 
been ratting? " 

We and the French were not on the best terms 
about Siam at the time I first joined the Embassy, 
and I remfember poor Henry Foley's private letters 
to me from the Foreign Office used to bear for some 
time as the rubric of their theme, in thd top right- 
hand comer in his official copperplate, the words : 
" D. ^n Siam." 

» The name imaginary. 



CHAPTER XIII 

AMBASSADORS AND SARAH 

Lords Dufferin and Lytton — Charlie Duff — The Key of the " House " — Prince 
Demidoff — Conder as Pugihst — The Lord Chief Justice — Sarah Bern- 
hardt — Edmond Rostand — Jean Kichepin — Sarah as debutante — Stage 
Craft — Anatole France. 

No one likes and admires the French' more than I do 
and have always done, and I fully expected to find 
these sentiments reflected in Lord Dufferin. To my 
great surprise I found that he could hardly express 
himself at all in French and to put it mildly was not 
enthusiastic about the nation. For this reason he was 
quite out of touch with the Parisian point of view^ and 
let me clearly see that he was not enjoying himself in 
the City of Light. It was a thousand pities that one so 
endowed with the Graces in the Chesterfieldian sense 
should have been ignorant of the language in which 
they are most cultivated. Lord Dufferin, of course, 
was not a diplomatist by career, and had been given 
the Embassy at Paris as a fitting crown tq a great 
career. If he had been able to wear it easily, nothing 
would have suited him better. 

Lord Lytton, of whom I used to see something 
when he was Ambassador to Paris, but on whose Staff 
I never was, enjoyed his timte as Ambassador up to 
the hilt. He Was a good French scholar, and delighted 
to entertain not only the social and political bigwigs, 
but also the actors and actresses of the Theatre Frangais, 
R^jane, Sarah Bernhardt and others less known. The 
garden parties at the Embassy during his regime were 

224 



THE IDEAL AMBASSADRESS 225 

very delightful in the summer, and Lady Lytton has 
always seemed to me, of the many Ambassadresses that 
I have met, the best representative of the class. She 
looked and acted the part to perfection. A number 
of wives of our Ambassadors, on the contrary, seem to 
regard their position as purely personal, granted to 
them by a grateful country, because they are such 
charming people, with the intention that they shall 
invariably follow the mood of the moment, regardless 
of their official position. The Ambassadors follow in 
their train, picking up the social bits and neatly (as 
far as possible) piecing them' together again. 

Such a personage was a delightful woman, whom 
I knew well as the - beautiful Mrs. Singleton and 
gave charming parties ih Princes Gate. Eventually she 
became the wife of Sir Philip Currie of the Foreign 
Office, and went with him to Rome when he was 
appointed Ambassador. In addition to the " fatal gift 
of beauty," she possessed the yet more fatal gift (in an 
Ambassadress) of writing verse. It was not at all 
bad verse, but her ladyship wias certainly not a good 
Ambassadress, though she always remained charming 
to her personal friends, especially if they also wrote 
verse. But woe to the unhappy British subject who 
did not happen to chime with her viewl of the world 
or her mood of the moment. 

Aubrey Beardsley once described Sir William' AVatson 
to me as " the best poet ever made," but I do not 
recall this compliment to Sir William with a view to 
lessening the merit of Lady Currie's literary efforts. 
It is rather with a view of suggesting that an 
Ambassadress can also be made, if she will only take 
the trouble to remember that Britannia is not Titania 
— they rhyme though they do not rule together. 

15 



226 AMBASSADORS AND SARAH 

Foreign diplomatists have often discussed in my 
presence such tragic finales to fine careers as those 
of Sir Edward Thornton, Ambassador in Peters- 
burg (a delightful man), and Lord Dufferin. They 
say that when our ambassadors retire they (or their 
wives) always wish to live upon the same scale as when 
they were in receipt of their full diplomatic salaries. 
The magnificence of the ambassadorial position has 
become so dear to them (or their wives) that they can- 
not dispense with it. They are thus led into entering 
the City and accepting seats on the boards of directorates, 
with a view to making up for the difference in income. 
Everybody knows (or should know) that a knowledge 
of great political and diplomatic business does not 
imply capacity for understanding financial affairs in 
their many intricacies. Poor Lord Dufferin was com- 
pletely deceived by that clever scoundrel, Whitaker 
Wright, and the glamour attached to a salary of 
£10,000 a year was too much for his critical judgment. 
Various friends became alarmed at the position of the 
Lake View Consols gold mine, of which he was 
Chairman, and I remember my uncle telling me 
that he had uttered a word of friendly Warning, 
but received the reply : *' all is well : I never do any- 
thing without consulting my solicitor." It has struck 
me that the much-overdone system of examination, as 
applied to the Civil Service, might very wtell be applied 
in a modified degree to all those claiming to sit upon 
directorates, or otherwise take charge of other people's 
financial interests. It should be legally enacted that, 
before accepting such positions, they should be examined 
by a joint board of (say) actuaries and stockbrokers, 
who would begin by testing their capacity to read and 
understand a few (unseen !) balance sheets and intricate 



CHARLIE DUFF 227 

transactions in stocks and shares. Miany wbuld say- 
that this would be degrading! to eminent men from 
other walks in life who wish to spend the autumn 
of their days gleaning golden harvests in Thtogmorton 
Street. The answer should be : then continue to walk 
along the path you have trodden successfully — or for 
heaven's sake sit down and be quiet on a more 
modest income for the few years that remain to 
you. My friend, the Hon. Charles Lawrence, is 
chairman of a great railway company, which now 
proposes to elect no memhers to the board over forty 
years of age. This is an almost exact reversal of 
the policy that has hitherto reigned paramount, and 
I think that there is ' mtich to be said; in its favour. 
As a set-off to the above practical remarks, in which 
it must be admitted that I do not often indulge, I will 
refer to a distant connection of my own^ the late Charles 
Duff, brother of Assheton Smith of Veynell, whose clever 
eccentricities used often to make me smile. I first 
began to see something of him in Paris, and the 
acquaintance strengthened by kinship (or clanship), con- 
tinued in London. Charlie Duff, famous as the owner 
of Cloister, had other talents besides the Turf. He was 
an amusing talker, with a distinct talent for caricature, 
and his work occasionally adorned a page of Vanity 
Fair. He was always up to some wild prank, and 
I remember receiving a wire from' him asking me 
to come and stay with him at the Clifton, Margate. 
I ran down for the week-end and found the owner 
of Cloister extended at full length upon the sand, 
surrounded by some thousands of trippers and being 
played and joked at by an active ^and of black-faced 
minstrels, to whom he negligently pitched an occasional 
sovereign while returning their personal remarks with 



228 AMBASSADORS AND SARAH 

interest. He afterwards stood everyone within reach' 
shrimps and tea, and became the idol of the nurse- 
maids. He said it was a nice change from London. 
De gustibus! 

The same autumn I was sitting in the hall window 
of the St. James's Club, a favourite perch of mine at 
that time when in town. Some of the best talk Was 
bandied about to the tune of the tape machine clicking 
out racing results. Ralph Nevill was buzzing in and 
out of the card-room, where he ahv*ays had a card stew 
brewing in the shape of a share in somebody's hand or 
a dummy at bridge ; Hafry Cust was having tea or a 
substitute for it close by, when to us entered a solemn 
figure. Yes, it v/as Charlie Duff, but the laugh had gone 
out of his grey eyes : we felt that some new' and strange 
event had entered the current of his ill-spent days. 
He sat down and asked for a drink, which I at once 
ordered (he was not a member of the Club). 
When he had refreshed himself, he came out with the 
joke which had been lying so heavily on his chest. He 
had stolen something for a joke and now 'wlanted to give 
it back. We plied him with guesses — was it the Ascot 
Gold Cup? No (this was reserved for a later expert). 
Was it the Crown (this had already been done by 
Colonel Blood), and Charlie Duff was never a plagiarist. 
It was nothing so splendid, but something, perhaps, 
almost as important. He had, in fact, stolen the key 
of the House of Commons. It appeared that he was 
being shown round the place by Sir William' Harcourt, 
when the sight of the venerable key of the custodians 
of British freedom had been too great a temptation. 
He had simply pocketed it while Sir Wlilham was blow- 
ing his nose in an immense bandana , handkerchief, 
after reciting a complete list of the Sipeakers of the 



THE KEY OF THE "HOUSE" 229 

House (with dates : I have heard him do the like for 
the Kings of England). What was to be done with 

the d d thing? He had got it with him now'. It 

stuck to him, indeed, like the shirt of Nessus. He 
had thought of depositing it in the centre of Charlie 
Jerningham's table in Montpelier Square, but the latter 
had vehemently objected, saying that he must either 
send it back, addressed to Sir William, or leave it for 
some years sealed up at his Bank. 

Cust listened while the tale was poured out. He 
admired the act, but condemned the cowardice : "Of 
course you ought to chuck the damned thing into the 
river," was his final comment. 

I never found out what happened to the ikey : Charlie 
Duff always turned off the question when asked. This 
exploit of his recalls that of the Colonel Blood above 
mentioned, who stole the Crown Jewels in the time of 
Charles H. I have always thought the latter a most 
picturesque figure proceeding from the Tower with the 
Crown under his arm, wrapped up in brown paper, the 
Orb in his pocket, and usingi the Sceptre as a sort of 
impromptu walking-stick. The only difference appears 
to be that Duff was a rich man, and did it for a 
joke, while Blood, who was a poor one, meant business. 

Little seems left for future men of enterprise in this 
direction — ^To steal the key of the Cabinet? — But where 
is it kept? — In the pocket of the P.M,., or on Mrs. 
George's chatelaine, along with that of the cellar in 
Downing Street? Chi lo saP 

Charlie Duff's brother, Assheton Smith, the millionaire, 
was not nearly so amusing', but once made an un- 
intentionally funny remark to me when w'e were sittin'g! 
near one another at luncheon at the Demidoffs. " I 
warn you, my dear Ainslie, if you ,keep' baboons, 



230 AMBASSADORS AND SARAH 

be careful. They are not good-tempered, and have 
killed at least one of my keepers." I replied, that 
having at present only one small room off Piccadilly, 
I did not think of taking in baboons as boarders. 

My dear and excellent Russian and Eton friend, 
Elim Demidoff, Prince of San Donato (near Florence), 
our host on that occasion, has had a brilliant diplomatic 
career. At the time I mention, he was Secretary of the 
Russian Embassy in London under that kindly and 
popular personage, the Baron de Stahl. His father 
and uncle were celebrities on the Continent and had 
it not been for the war and the collapse of Russia at 
the red hands of the Bolsheviks, Elim Demidoff would 
have quite possibly returned to this country as Russian 
Ambassador. It lay between him and the Secretary 
of State, Isvolsky. Now he is still in the Russian 
diplomatic service, Minister at Athens, but, as he says, 
" Minister from whom, to whom, representing what, 
I do not know." I think that ups and downs of 
fortune, those of certain Russian nobles, exceed any- 
thing that the rest of the world can show, when one 
takes in all the splendour of their position at home 
and abroad. My friend's income from Russia in 1913 
amounted to eight millions of francs, about £320,000 ; 
in 1 914 he was condemned to death and of course 
in receipt of nothing. " Doiix pays,'" as Grosclaude 
would remark. But he is a poet and a philosopher, as 
well as a diplomatist, and continues to enjoy life and 
to continue to do as much good as his restricted means 
allow. Stendhal, who followed the fortunes of Napoleon, 
said of his own experiences in life, which were not 
always agreeable : " One must learn to take a retreat 
from Russia like a glass of lembnade." 

My dear old friend Conder, his wife Stella and, I once 



CONDER AS PUGILIST 231 

returned late from, a party at Walter Crane's. We par- 
took of some light refreshment and I left their beautiful 
house in Chelsea facing Battersea Bridge at about twelve 
o'clock. As Conder was locking up for the night he 
heard a noise in the area and saw a burglar dis- 
appearing with some of their property over the railings. 
Although he was the most die-away and evanescent of 
painters, Conder had muscles of steel, and knew how 
to use his fists. He bolted after the burglar, and after 
a brief tussle, knocked him down and fell on 
the top of him with the intention of sitting on his 
head until the police camie. The burglar, after an in- 
effective wriggle or two, gave up the game and said : 
" You 'ave given me' the 'ell of a time, governor, the 
gold watch is in me jacket pocket, it's all I've got that's 
any good, be a sport, take it and let me go." Conder 
was at once touched with this tribute to his prowess, and 
was in the act of rising to comlply witli his request, 
when the police did come along and made escape for 
the burglar impossible. 

While the rest of the Chancellery were occupied with 
*' la haute politique " and the yet more important " pari 
mutuel" I used occasionally to tread a little primrose 
path of my own, which' did not by any means lead 
to perdition. 

Thus the friendship with Madame Sarah Bernhardt, 
which had begun at the Hague, was continued while 
I was in Paris, and I used frequentjly to slip away to 
the Boulevard P^reire from the Rue St. Honor^. 

Occasionally, however, the Embassy was brightened 
wit'h an interesting personality such as the late Lord 
Chief Justice, Russell of Killowen. This portentous 
personage had come over to sit upon the Behring Sea 
Arbitration (he sat ujx)n everything and everyone, so 



232 AMBASSADORS AND SARAH 

the phrase is strictly accurate). He was altogether 
tremendous, exuberant in vitality, able to put in double 
the work of ordinary mortals and also double the play 
by dispensing with sleep, or taking only very small 
doses of it. Play with him meant chiefly cards, and he 
ransacked the Chancellery to find boon companions 
willing to sit up all night over poker when the hard 
work of the day w^as done. 

The story of his adventure with the subaltern in 
the Brigade of Guards has always tickled me, so I 
hand it on for the benefit of those who may chance 
not to have heard' it. He was playing bridge at a 
house in Mayfair belonging to a fashionable young 
widow. A move had been made for the card tables 
soon after dinner, and tlie Lord Chief Justice had cut 
for partners a newly joined subaltern in that illustrious 
and aristocratic body. The evening had been a long 
disaster for the pair : cards had been bad anid the play 
of the young man even worse. At last the patience of 
the Lord Chief Justice was exhausted, and he thundered 
forth his accusations of wrong: leads, failure to answer 
calls, etc., highly spiced with powerful expletives. 

The young officer waited until he had finished, and 
then said quietly : "I'm sorry I played badly, but if 
you swear at me like that again I shall stop playing 
and throw the cards in your face ; don't think you can 
give us any of your damned Police Court manners here." 
Through Madame Sarah, the best woman talker I 
ever met, I became acquainted with Edmond Rostand, 
the poet of Cyrano. I remember aii amusing supper- 
party given by the great actress after the performance 
of Rostand's Prlncesse Lointaine (which I possess with 
his dedication to me). Among the guests was Sarah's 
son, Maurice Bemhiardt, who married a Roumanian 



SARAH BERNHARDT 233 

Bibesco. He was a handsome agreeable man to meet, 
and adored by his mother, who declared to me that 
she could refuse him nothing. Rostand and a number 
of members of the company were also present. I re- 
member Sarah's turning the conversation on to the 
likenesses to birds and animals to be detected in all 
human beings. I was seated next to her and asked 
her (with an internal smile) what animal het son was 
like, whereupon she quickly replied : " Maurice is the 
very image of a thoroughbred, ' un cheval de race, 
mais mechant, tres mechant.' " Then her eye began 
running round the faces of those seated at the .supper 
table and stopped at a little actress with large blue, 
rather prominent eyes, an aquiline nose and a big mouth. 
" Tenez I " she said ; " voila Mademoiselle X qui res- 
semble exactment a une petite merle au nid, le bee 
ouvert attendant que sa m^re y laisse tomber un ver." 
And sure enough the little lady did look just like a 
little fledgling thrush waiting to be fed in its nest 
with wide-open beak. 

After hitting off a few others to a T, she stopped 
at Rostand, who was in dress-clothes and therefore black 
and white with pale face, dark hair, wide forehead 
and bald head : " Et toi, Rostand, tu ressembles exacte- 
ment a un de ces singes blancs et noirs que Ton voit 
au Jardin d'Acclimatation." Rostand did not like this 
comparison of himself to a black and white monkey, 
which he seemed to take quite seriously, but he |Vas 
too much the courtier of the great actress to ;readt 
violently, contenting himself with a deprecatory gesture 
and the phantom of a smilie. After hitting: off a few 
others between wind and water, Sarah turned to me 
and said a br die-pour point: " Et moi, dis, mon ami, 
a quoi je ressemble? " Her wonderful m'ane of tawny 



234 AMBASSADORS AND SARAH 

gold hair was flowing! that night in an ultra leonine 
way, so I risked the compliment and declared for la 
lioness : " Yes, divine one, your earthly semblance is 
exactly that of a lioness." " Tu te trompes complete- 
ment," she cried out, and pointing to Sarita, one of her 
suite who sat near, declared : " There is your like- 
ness to a lioness, but / am exactly a goat, both in 
looks and in character. Like a goat I love to 
climb to the summit of the steepest peak and to look 
down from there upon the rest of the world at my feet." 
Curiously enough, Sarah at that time did closely re- 
semble a goat seen in profile, with her longi face and 
the position of the eyes, the eyebrows and the hair. 

That was a wonderful evening when Sarah wias at 
the top of her form and Rostand', who could talk 
splendidly when the mood was on him^, chiming in with 
stimulating memories and a little cayenne. I remember 
asking her what she really thought of Victorien 
Sardou, who had written so much for her in early days. 
She said he was a wonderfully interesting talker, but 
in theatrical matters " un pion de cam'pagne," a country 
school-master. She mimicked his " J'ai votre affaire." 
She liked Catulle Mendes personally as a good friend, 
but disapproved of much of his writing, such as 
Mephistophela, which had lately appeared. Rostand 
told me afterwards that she was quite likely to take 
an opposite view of his literature when next he was 
discussed. Among the others present that evening was 
a Monsieur Morand, to whom she was attached at the 
time. He was a poet and joint author of Izeyl with 
Armand Sylvestre. The curious resemblance of all the 
especial favourites of Sarah was pointed out to me by 
Rostand : all had black beards and brown hair. He 
mentioned, among others, Jean Richepin, the poet, and 



JEAN RICHEPIN 235 

Damalas. Of Morand the poet, Rostand remarked that 
she no longer cared for him, but kept him on in order 
not to hurt his feelings, and because it looked well 
to have some sort of poet permanently at one's feet. 
Roche, the journalist, he said, had wept because Sarah 
had told him he bored her. He was present on that 
occasion, and Rost,and remarked : " La ou il y a Sarah 
il y a tou jours une Roche." We all laughed at Roche. 
He did not seem to mind so long as he was " in the' 
picture." ', 

Of Richepin the story used to go that he fell head 
and ears over in love with that explosion in the dark- 
ness that was Sarah, deserting wife and family to follow 
her footsteps all over the fair land of France. Thus 
they toured from town to town and province to 
province, treading the tops of the bouquets of admiration 
and of art, the brain of the poet and the art of his 
interpreter. At last they returned to Paris, and for 
the first time since he had deserted his domicile in 
the Quartier, the poet bethought him of his little wife 
and two children. It was certainly odd that she should 
not have written or made any attempt to get in touch 
with him, although he well knew that she was .devoted 
to the very ground he trod. At last, one day, he decided 
to go and see what had happened. He arrived jat 
the hour of the second dejeuner, when he knew ,that 
his wife and children would probably be just sittinig 
down to that meal. His nerves were strung upi in 
anticipation of a passionate scene of reproaches as he 
rang the bell. When the maid opened the door land 
saw who it was, she said that Madame had j'ust sat 
down, and the truant poet, putting as bold a face as 
he could upon it, entered the dining-room, where he saw 
his wife with a child on either side of her. " Tiens, 



236 AMBASSADORS AND SARAH 

Jean, tu es revenu " Wias all she said, risings to kiss 
him.' wfelcome back. He sat through the meal anti- 
cipating the inevitable scene when they were alone 
together. But there was no scene — result : the poet never 
left the family hearth again. That is what I call a 
clever woman. 

To sup every night with Sarah would have been 
like attending an orchestral concert every night : 
too much orchestration. When Sarah begins to 
conceive an interest in the conversation she elevates 
her voice, and slightly swaying her wonderful head, 
throws an indescribable elan, a conviction that 
carries the day. She can do anything she likes 
with accent and intonation. I remember some year 
or so before the occasion of the party at Paris 
on which I have dwelt as typical of many, that I was 
talking vdth Sarah in her loge just before the curtain 
rose on the last act of Fedora. The call'-boy had 
tapped twice on the door, and at last she rose, laughing 
with the voice of gold : " Et main tenant je m'en vais 
mourir," she said, extending a jewelled' hand to be 
kissed. I hast;ened round to the front to see the death- 
scene, and was really astonished at the intensity of 
the realism she threw into the death that she had died 
on the stage so many hundreds of timtes. Ope felt 
every time that tht.s was the supreme occasion : that 
was her genius. 

My dear old friend an/d relative on my mother's side, 
Mr. G. H. Stephenson, was a lifelong admirer of Sarah, 
and I remember his describing her first appearance 
as a debutante in Frangois Coppee's one-act play 
Le Passant. The whole atmosphere of the theatre, he 
said, seemed to change when she first spoke : it was 
lik:e the discovery of electricity. Poetry in her mouth 



EDMOND ROSTAND 237 

was like oil and flame. To the end, he who had often 
seen Rachel, declared to me that there was no com- 
parison possible with Sarah. Rachel, the tragedienne, 
was immensely great, but with a far narrower range, 
but Sarah was as unapproachable in Phedre as in La 
Dame aux Camelias. 

Every poet Sarah touched turned to gold. Richepin 
and Rostand were but two of the distinguished throngi. 
She had the genius of kindling' the genius of others. 
Rostand is of course not a great poet or a subtle poet, 
but his work is admirably suited to the stage, and 
this knowledge of stage technique he owed entirely to 
Sarah, who stood at his side to guide his steps from 
the start. Of course she had discerned his brilliant 
and indeed obvious talent or she would not have taken 
the trouble, yet the fact remains that had Sarah jQOt 
been there Rostand might have written for years un- 
noticed, instead of springing into celebrity in a single 
first night. Sarah had reserved me a stall for the first 
night of CyraUyO, but it had not reached me the day 
before, so I sent a note to inquire. In reply I received 
a telegram of forty words explaining that the ticket 
had been stolen — " on t'a vole ton billet " — and that 
it could not be recovered at any price. I have kept 
the telegram as a theatrical curiosity. After Cyrano, 
Rostand continued to shine. When he came over to 
London with his charming wife I took them everywhere. 
He spoke no English and was dep;ressed by that heavy 
atniosphere of the Metropolis, so noticeable when one 
returns from the other side of the Channel. " Pourquoi 
si triste, cher Edmond," she used to. say, and we would 
take him off to lunch and be cheered up at the Savoy. 
He was apt to sit silent for long periods, musing over 
his rhymes, which were at times aUracadabr antic. 



238 AMBASSADORS AND SARAH 

I remember Sarah using a wonderful verb in describing- 
the impression upon her of the Princesse Lointaine : 
she said : " Cela m'a extraordine.'' I used to repeat 
Tennyson, SWinbume, and other poets to Rostand, but 
he d'id not know enough English to enjoy them, .and 
tlierein was a good deal tn'ore frank than Paul Bouxglet 
With his commbnplace praise of writers whom he does 
not read in the original. 

To finish with Rostand^ whose son I am glad to 
see has been successful with a play on an Enghsh 
theme, I may recount the ultra-Parisian anecdote of 
the actor who was playing the lead in one of Rostand's 
comedies and much in love with the leading lady. 
All went well for a time, but at last the actor discovered 
a waning of affection for himself, and traced it 'to 
the attentions of the author's son. He was furious^ 
and after a futile attempt to win back her laffections 
with vituperation, betook himself to the father (impossible 
with us !) to complain that as leadijng man in the 
latter 's play it was contrary to all precedent that ,he 
should be cut out by a whipper-snapper like the 
author's son. Edmond Rostand listened until the 
actor had finished his harangue and then turned upon 
him' with a harangue in reply, equally polished and 
equally to the point, in which he told Guitry that at 
his age he had no business to make love to the leadinSg' 
lady and that it served him right if he had been cut 
out by a younger man — whether it were his son or not 
made no difference . 

I used occasionally to meet the eminent critic, 
Laroumet, at Madame Armand de Caillavet's, and it 
was there that I also met Monsieur Anatole France, 
whose acquaintance I wish that I had cultivated more. 
Madame Armand had a great cult for him, and used to 



THE SALON DES ARTISTES 239 

show me his manuscripts exquisitely bound and some 
of them illuminated. Laroumet was a good and keen 
talker, and to him Rostand always appealed when it 
was .a. question of asserting his own poetic merit. 
Laroumet had the highest opinion of Rostand and his 
works. The story goes that on one ocqasion they were 
dining together at a restaurant on the boulevard, when 
Rostand inadvertently allowed the glowing end of his 
cigar to burn a large hole in the table-cloth. " What 
am I to do? " inquired the alarmed' poet and friend. 
" C'est bien simple," replied Laroument : " signez le 
trou." The hole was duly signed and the table-cloth 
preserved for the admiration of future generations. 

For some years, thanks to Suzanne Reichenberg, I 
had the enttee to the Salon des Artistes at the Theatre 
Frangais, and there I saw most of the literary and 
artistic celebrities of the day. We have no Green 
Room in any London theatre approaching the Salon des 
Artistes at the Comedie, and it was really an education 
to ,hear the conversation of such jovial raconteurs as 
Frangois Coppee, Mendes, Becque, and many others 
who came and went during the perf orm'ances . Coppee 
had a mania for looking at himself in the gilass, and 
I remember that was how I first realized that he was 
the poet of Le Passant, for I was passing the time 
of day to Lord Lytton (a faithful frequenter) when he 
remarked to me : "I wonder what Coppee can find 
to admire in his countenance like a cooked tomato — 
however, he has all the other good qualities cults a 
point. 



CHAPTER XIV 

HENRY JAMES AND OTHERS 

Cigarettes — Lady Grant Duff and the Tiny Ghost — Books are Talks — Glad 
stone Garrulous — Best Stories Lost — Henry James — His " First Night' 
— "Author! Author"! — Plucked Plumes — A Determined Talker. 

Lord Lytton's own tic was the smoking of cigarettes. 
His valet used to awake him^ in the morning at eight 
o'clock by striking a match and declaring the hour : 
" Eight o'clock, my lord." From that time until he 
sought a late lunch a cigarette was never out of his 
mouth. Even during meals he was sure to produce 
one after the fish. That he lived to a good old age 
is a credential for cigarette smoking! ; but he must 
have had a wonderful constitution to have withstood it. 
Lord Lytton rather lived than wrote poetry, though 
his verse writings were numerous. His whole career 
was a romance from his appointment by Dizzy 
to be Viceroy of India from mere Secretary of 
Legation that he was ; everything seemed to turn to 
the ideal of human endeavour. He was an old man 
when he went to Paris, but the best intellect of France 
soon realized that in him they had, for once in a 
hundred, an ambassador able to appreciate and to do 
honour to the French genius. The reason why Lord 
Lytton's parties were so much mbre entertaining than 
the usual diplomatic parties was just that he invited 
a leaven of interesting people from all careers, instead 
of limiting himself to the stodgy but magnificent 
Faubourg, the two houses of equally stodgy but less 

240 



LADY GRANT DUFF'S GHOST 241 

magnificent repTesentations and the crowd of esurient 
and critical chers collegaes. 

My uncle Grant Duff used to rent Lord Lytton's 
place Knebworth during his absence abroad, and it 
was there that my aunt had one of three unexplained 
psychical experiences, which I hope to describe in 
another volume. Here I have space only for the briefest 
of the three narratives. 

My aunt was bom of a family and at a period 
when it was believed that " hardening " was good for 
the young. This disastrous notion applied to a person 
of remarkable recuperative powers and high intellect, 
such as my aunt, does less harm than in the vast majority 
of cases, where it may often prove fatal to the weak and 
ultra (Sensitive. That is my opinion, endbrsed, I 
believe, by a large number of people to-day, who are 
on the other hand by no means advocates of excessive 
leniency and enervating solicitude for children. 

Be this as it may, the little girl in question was 
informed one eveningi that she would have to sleep 
that night in the " haunted " rootn. She was not even 
told what haunted the room, but was locked in at 
bedtime with the Holy Bible, on which to rest her 
head when she slept. Nothing occurred in the little 
dark narrow room with its white cot and one small 
window overlooking gaunt acres of park. She un- 
dressed, lay down and eventually cried herself to 
sleep. She awoke with a start. She had been crying 
as she lay there feverishly tossing hjer little hands 
on the coverlet, but now someone else was crying too, 
someone standing close to her bed in the darkness. 
She was at first terrified, but suddenly all fear 
left her : she had recognized by the sound that the 

crying was that of another child like herself, only far, 

16 



242 HENRY JAMES AND OTHERS 

more miserable than ever she had been. At last she 
summoned up courage to speak : " Why are you 
crying? " she asked. There was no reply, but the 
crying went on as before. Suddenly she felt something 
icy cold touch her hand : it was another hand, the hand 
of a child. The crying ceased, and the invisible little 
hand rested upon hers as though it felt comfort there. 
She fell into a tranquil sleep and was still sleeping 
when they came to wake her. She afterwards heard 
that a small girl had been starved to death in that 
room two hundred years ago. 

The above little story interests me much, as it is 
first hand for 'me, though not for my readers. I 
guarantee its authenticity. 

Perhaps some of them' will hear for the first time 
the shortest gh\ost story in the world, of which, on the 
contrary!, I do not guarantee the authenticity, although 
told me by a Jesuit priest ; but I look ,upon it as highly 
probable. Here it is : "A lady awoke from sleep 
feeling frightened : it was pitch dark : she was about 
to reach out for the matchbox, but before she could 
do so the box was placed in her hand.''' 

That is all, but I think sufficiently appalling to go on 
with until I tell the shortest but one. 

I have apparently wandered far from the Embassy 
in recounting these tales, but my object now, as it was 
then, is to wander as far as possible rather than initiate 
the bored reader into the dreary routine of drafting 
and docketing despatches. I remember many years 
ago going over the Libi^ary of the Foreign Office 
with a high official. He shoWed me the official 
seals, to which he attached great importance, but 
the books and the library were evidently only of 
interest to him as ancillary to the work of the 



BOOKS ARE TALKS 243 

office. Even at that time I had come to the conclusion 
of Maurice Barr^s, that events are only interesting when 
they have ceased to be actual and have become 
matters of speculation. The official in question 
was incarnate red tape, but could tell a good 
official story : one heard the crackle of dry parch- 
ment as he turned the piagte of conversation. His 
power was once greater than that of any am- 
bassador. With the use of telegraph' and telephone 
the palmy days of diplomacy are gone by. No 
ambassador can now inaugurate a policy, because he 
has not time to commit his country to a line of policy 
before he is corrected! from the Foreign Office. Lovers 
of the sense of power in the career should, in my view*, 
always apply for far Eastern posts, because the prestige 
of diplomatists grows inversely with their proximity to 
the Foreign Office. 

Conversation within the limits of the protocol has 
always seemed to me an angel with shackles on its 
wings. That is why I have always sought it afield in 
the byways ajid coppices of life and literature or in the 
closed gardens where the pheasants walk and show 
their plumes to the sun. Has anyone bettered Mau- 
passant's definition of the art as that of " never seeming 
wearisome, of knowing how to say everything interest- 
ingly, of pleasing with no matter what, of fascinating 
with nothing at all." A book is a conversation with 
an echo that adds something to what has just been 
said, ^and laughs at every joke. The appalling 
responsibility of writing a book, such as this, is perhaps 
lessened when one confesses that the idea of talking 
for three hundred pages would never have entered the 
writer's head of itself, but like the matchbox in the 
ghost story, was placed in it by an unknown power. 



244 HENRY JAMES AND OTHERS 

The other form of conversation, where there is 
someone in flesh and blood to reply and to toss the 
shuttlecock just out of easy reach so that one! must 
run in order to r'eturn it, that is the real thingi. Con- 
versation is a delicate art unknown to the Grand 
Panjandrums, of whom one has heard from' boyhood 
upwards . 

Such a personage as Gladstone, for instance, would 
get up a subject like Chinese Music, and begin talking 
by perfunctorily inquiring of the hapless lady, his 
neighbour at dinner, what she knew of the subject. This 
most inartistic of our demagogues, I have it upon good 
authority, was an intolerable usurper of the rights of 
his fellow-diners in this connection, and would hold 
forth by the half -hour upon a subject that very likely 
intterested jiobody present, and even if it h;ad, that 
somebody was supposed to interpolate no remark that 
did not chime with the "grand " old man's. " No one 
ever contradicts Mr. Gladstone," his wife remarked on 
more than one occasion to young paladins who, greatly 
daring, wished to turn a monologue into a talk. I never 
had the misfortune to face Gladstone at the tea-table, 
though on a good many occasions it was my fate to 
hear the Right Hon. George Russell, who had been 
his secretary, hold forth in what I suppose was the 
traditional Gladstonian manner. I gave him short 
shrift, however, and when he had told mfe for the third 
time that his grandam was a Byron, repelled the fourth 
attack with the remark that if it wias a question of 
asserting she was my " grandam " also. 

Anecdotes well told, on the contrary, are, and always 
have been, a pure joy. One of the best performers in 
this difficult and dangerous craft was the uncle so often 
mentioned in these pages, the diarist and statesman. 



ART OF CONVERSING 245 

Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff. He always handled his 
material adroitly, helped by his unerring mfemory. He 
never bored. I have heard him' sta;rt one longi historical 
anecdote after another and watched the eagerly attentive 
expression on the faces of those within Teach of his rather 
low voice. I asked him for his formula and he said it 
was : " Always tell a story in exactly the same words." 
Many of his best stories have been lost to posterity, 
for they did not appear in the Diaries lest they should 
hurt the feelings of anyone living. His generation 
has now almost disappeared and one of my chief regrets 
is that I did not beg of him to leave a volume of these 
to be published twenty, or thirty years after his death. 
Another secret of good talk is the power of stimu- 
lating the thought of others while developing one's 
own. To listen rightly — that is the important thing — 
the extraction from the quartz of one's interlocutor 
of the gold that he has not noticed adhering to it. It 
adds greatly to the interest and stimulates him' if it 
is a bit of his unnoticed gold that you have taken and 
used for your repartee. Such a talker was Charleis 
Brookfield, who, however, was always ready to slice 
his opponent's nose if given a chance_, apd such another 
was Gilbert. With both I have talked at one of toy 
clubs. The latter had an artful way of luring the un- 
wary into (verbal pitfalls which he had previously 
planted with sharp stakes. Brilliant as they were, 
neither could be trusted with the bottom^ off the foil. 
Both were too fond of making the crimson trickle. But 
despite this practical fault in what should bfe an artistic 
performance, I would not have missed hearing them' 
for worlds. None of us could feel bored, because if 
the attention were allowed to wander the individual 
in question was sure to be pinked. 



246 HENRY JAMES AND OTHERS 

In direct contrast to these cut-and-thrusters was 
dear old Henry James, best of men and wbrst of 
dramatists. He used to go about the great business 
of talking in a more subtle but not less effective manner. 
This manner might be described as determined hesitation. 
It was absolutely fatal to interrupt James, even with 
the most appropriate vocable. That simply meant the 
resumption of the entire narrative from' the beginning 
with the suggested word resolutely excluded. I 
shall never, for instance, forget meeting him in the 
callow days of our friendship upon the bridge of the 
Rialto at Venice. We neither of us had an umbrella 
and the sky looked decidedly threatening. James placed 
his hand upon my shoulder, remarked that we had both 
sallied forth to the fray, modern Paladins unarmed — 

with here he paused and began fumbling as usual 

for a word. Meanwhile several heavy drops fell, and I 
became anxious to get under cover, so I very impru- 
dently hazarded the fatal word — umbrella. The mischief 
was done ; his grasp upon my shoulder tightened as 
he frowned, not in anger, but in the mental effort to 
find an alternative word. His brow was wrinkled with 
thought, he tapped the pavement with his toe as the 
heavy drops tapped our bowlers. Escape was hopeless 
before an eminent American novelist (he was not yet 
naturalized British) in the throes of composition. He 
looked up the canal anxiously ; then he looked equally 
anxiously down the canal, emitting the while strange 
little gurgling sounds in his throat, which connoted 
the throttling of crowds of harmless, excellent vocables, 
only too anxious to be of service. It began to pour 
and I felt so desperate that I wrenched myself free 
with the unfeeling remark : " Well, it's an umbrella 
that I want at any rate." I left dear James gazing 



THE PLAY'S NOT THE THING 247 

after me as the raindrops tricked from the tip of his 
hat on to his nose. He was istill seeking the correct 
word (other than umbrella) when I turned the corner 
of the bridge. 

We met at luncheon a little later in the .hospitable 
Palazzo of Mrs. Bronson, a delightful American lady 
who used to entertain a good deal at Venice. 

I have often wondered how long he did stand there 
in the rain before the right substitute occurred to him. 
By rights he should be there now, but even James liked 
his luncheon. I believe I might have inquired with 
perfect safety, for James was great-hearted, and quite 
incapiable of bearing malice for the unkindest of thrusts. 

For years I used often to meet him in Society, which 
like many others he verbally detested and really loved. 
He generally sidled up with some quaint remark, some 
ultra-recondite joke about someone present. In his 
last years it was roses, roses almost all the way for 
him I am glad to say, but like lesser men — and better 
driamatists — he had his bad quarters of an hour. 

I sha,ll never forget, for instance, his inviting! me 
to his box on the occasion of the first ^performance 
of a play of his at the St. James's Theatre. The play, 
adapted from a tale of his own, was singularly jUn- 
dramatic. A delicate psychological web, verbally 
unwouind by liis deft fingers from the skein in .which 
he had originally wound it. But the coarse glare of 
the footlights and the clumsy-fisted players kept 
breaking and tearing the dialogue at every point. The 
audience became impatient, or at least a section of 
it, for of course the author had his ffriends in the 
house, and I remember my friend, Edith Lady 
AUandale, applauding vigorously with me and others 
in our box. During the first two a^cts there ,were a 



248 HENRY JAMES AND OTHERS 

few rude remarks from pit and gallery, but by ;th'e 
time the last act was reached the tone was distinctly 
unfriendly. George Alexander leased the theatre and 
produced the play in which he had a leading! ,part, and: 
he was, of course, included in this censure, as the 
actors must always be associated with a theatrical 
failure as they are with a theatrical success. I could 
see that this failure angered him by the workings of 
his mouth while on the stage, but I was ,not prepared 
for what v/ais to follow. At the fall of the curtain there 
were plenty of cat-calls and hisses countered to some 
extent with vigorous applausie from our box and from' 
certain friendly pjarts of the house. James had m'ade 
one or two brief appearance's in the box, but had' disn 
appeared during the last act, and I did not .khow if 
he were in the house. Certain rather injudicious friends 
cried: "Author! Author! " To our surprise, James 
took the call, encouraged also perhaps by our friendly 
applause, and stood there alone, bowing in the middle 
of the stage, armed, no doubt, mth an arsenal of 
subtleties to be let loose upon an audience of un- 
appreciative first-nighters. As we know who have 
studied him and his works, Jamesian witticisms depend 
upon at least a hundred yards of time-fuse before there 
is the least chance of the tiniest coruscation. There he 
stood, apparently hypnotized by the uproar for which 
his appearance had been the signal, mumbling and 
bowing away before the curtain. I longed to leap 
on to the stage and lead him off. 

At last he seemed to have reached a dim apprehension; 
of the fact that he was not being universally applauded, 
and looking round at the boxes where were his friends, 
in a bemused sort of way, he at length did make up 
his mind to retire. 



THE BRIDGE OF IVORY 249 

Surprises were not over for the evening, however, 
for hardly had the excellent James disappeared when 
Alexander took his place before the curtain. His 
temper was (evidently no better, and the heavy jowl 
worked ominously. : ! 

I forget the actual words he used, but the gist of 
his remarks was that if the play had failed to please, 
then it was by no means the actors who were to be 
blamed, but solely the author. He washed his hands 
of the whole matter. 

I well remember gasping as I heard him and feeling 
that for his sake I did not know which way to look. 

James certainly suffered severely that evening and I 
was always careful to avoid the subject, though I now 
rather regret that I failed to obtain his opinion of 
Alexander. 

He was a steady friend, and I used to see him from 
time to time at the Athen^um' up to nearly the end. 
I had begun to publish my versions of the Esthetic and 
Practical Philosophy of Benedetto Croce about this time, 
when he glided up to me one day and sententiously 
laying a gentle hand upon my shoulder began : " What 
is this, my dear friend, are you really abandoning us 
who dwell — however humbly— be it well understood^ — 
upon the — er — yes — slopes of Parnassus — ^in order to— 
er — er — er — yes — walk with the — er — yes— Stoics in 
in the — er— Portico? " 

I replied (to my astonishment he appeared on this 
occasion to await a reply), that I had no intention of 
deserting my hovel upon the said slope, erected in the 
vicinity of his palace ; that between Parnassus and 
the Portico was a Bridge of Ivory which those who 
cultivated poetry and philosophy daily and nightly 
crossed. 



250 HENRY JAMES AND OTHERS 

Smiling, dear Jamtes opened his moutli, evidently 
about to develop a counter-thesis of some sort — fittingi 
up my hovel perhaps with a fewi plumes plucked 
from the Wings of ih€ Dove, when one who shall be 
nameless, but remain unblessed, came to interrupt us 
with some futile and wholly reasonable remark. This 
was almost the last time I saW him, looking strangely 
like an actor to those accustomed to the hair upon his 
face — he clean shaved in the last years of his life. 

This delightful muser aloud could not be called a 
conversationalist, though he disliked musing long in 
solitude, even at Rye in that delightful house where 
my friend E. F. Benson now lives retired from; the 
world. James was indeed a failure as a recluse. I 
recollect that one of his finest monologues after his 
establishment at Rye and rapid return thence to the 
Metropolis dealt with his misfortune in being dragged 
away from his studies and his solitude to attend the 
luncheon party of some pushing Duchess. I knew that 
he would not have missed it for the world, and I felt 
that he felt he had not convinced me, for his insistence 
upon his devotion to the ascetic life filled up quite 
twenty minutes of my time, pleasantly enough it is 
true. He tore himself away — to go to the party in 
question. 

On another occasion I remember I had again been 
lunching wit,h him in De Vere Gardens, and we had 
reached the coffee stage when the name of Mr. Francis 
Turner Palgrave was announced' as waiting in the hall. 

James for the first time ceased talking, rose and 
placed his hand upon my shoulder with that gesture 
of apprehension so comtnon to him. 

" My dear boy," he said, " our — er — delightful chat — 
our — free interchange of— er views — upon — ^yes I 
suppose I may say so — er— ttife most vital literary 



A GREAT TALKER 251 

questions of the — er — day^ — is — I — greatly regret — er — 
to say — at an end : the greatest bore in London is 
coming upstairs. We shall — er — neither of us — er — ^get 
— a word in— er — thenceforward — (I smiled sympatheti- 
cally). Don't go — please— indeed — I beg* of you — er — 
to stay and have — er — pity upon me — ^but I seize this — • 
er — opportunity to say— er — good-bye — ^for there will — 
certainly — not be — er — another opportunity." 

Before I had time to make my first remark since 
we had sat down to luncheon, the voice of Mr. Francis 
Turner Palgrave was heard resounding as he removed 
his hat in the hall. James was right, he Was a 
great speaker, ever vocal, and as he entered the room 
gripped the conversation with a hold which never 
relaxed during his visit. He held on steadily, despite 
James's attempts to break through, in response to the 
cordial Palgravian greeting that was extended to him. 
Palgrave 's really fine oration lasted a little under an 
hour, during which he touched upon all subjects that 
could conceivably interest anybody, and proved that 
all were dull. 

His method was masterly : it consisted in the use of 
the refrain. These refrains, selected from among the 
last five or six remarks that he made, were, of course, 
frequently varied. They were used as a sort of dam 
to block the current of any possibly invading speech. 
It was thus rendered almost irripossible for anyone 
to break through while Mr. Palgrave was selecting 
his next theme from his Golden Treasury talk so 
widely different from the other. Another powerful 
ingredient was that all he said was sensible, de- 
plorably so in fact, for it led his hearers to make 
silent vows to loathe and detest those very views for 
ever and ever. 



252 HENRY JAMES AND OTHERS 

James was always happiest. Hide many another less 
eminent person, when quite certain that whatever he 
said would be received with adinirative symipathy, and 
above all, inexhaustible patience, while he was fumbling 
about in his memory for what he believed to be the 
ideal word. Very often that which he selected would 
be so remote from' the context tliat one had to think 
of what James must have rejected in his pursuit of 
the exquisite and exotic, in order to be quite sure as 
to what he had really meant to say. 

Dear James ! Peace to his ashes. I shall always 
miss him and his gentle art of hesitation, of which he 
made grreat literature. 



CHAPTER XV 
CROCE, BAUDELAIRE, AND OTHERS 

Salons— Waiting Her Chance — Benedetto Croce— William Poel— Bernard 
Shaw — Aubrey Beardsley — Baudelaire — Maurice Barres — Victor Hugo 
— Marcel Proust — Casanova — Ernest Renan, 

Salons have been tried over and over again in London, 
but they have never been really successful. ,What is 
the reason? Simply because London is not Paris. One 
has merely got to obiserve a knot of Frenchmen dis- 
coursing at a cafe or in a club to see something at any 
rate of the machinery that is behind a salon. The art 
of speaking well is tfiught to children of both sexes in 
Paris and is not tatight in London. English people 
would not tolerate it. Although we are the most 
governed and the least free country in the world, the 
touching myth is still clung to by millions that we are 
free, .We are free to the extent of being free to be 
silent, and a Frenchman once defined conversation with 
an Englishman as— silence. Plenty of EngUsh people 
make no effort to join in conversation, much less to be 
entertaining. That is practically unheard of in France, 
where it would be looked upon as bad taste not to 
exert oneself while in the society of others. 

In Paris the rapidity of conversation at parties is often 
vertiginous, and it is difficult enough to follow, much 
less to make a contribution, when people are screaming 
jokes at one another from opposite ends of the table. 
I remember being seated next to a charming little 

2S3 



254 CROCE, BAUDELAIRE, AND OTHERS 

lady at such an entertainment. Shrieks of laughter 
were echoing all over the room, people were capping 
one another's " impossible " jokes with others yet more 
perpendicular, but my small friend sat still and wistful. 
She was waiting her opportunity. Suddenly she 
plunged into the tray, almost shrieking out a witticism, 
which was immediately caught up and applauded in 
the midst of the torrent. Then she turned to me with 
a sweet, satisfied smile and said : " Enfin, j'ai r^ussi 
a placer mbn mot — maintenant causons." Having suc- 
ceeded in her ambition she was content ; she had been 
recognized — she had placed her joke. 

But we did not long converse : soon she was again 
trying to " place " a witticism, and indeed in Paris it 
would be looked upon as bad manners to be occupied 
exclusively with one's neighbour, however much one 
might be devoted to her. 

Conversation as a fine art is almost exclusively con- 
fined to the Latin countries : in Italy it is even more 
dramatic than at Paris. 

'I have dealt elsewhere with my first meeting with 
Benedetto Croce, the philosopher of Naples. But here 
I may legitimately refer to the excellent quality ol 
the talk that I have enjoyed at his house and lalso in 
the streets of Parthenope, as Naples used to be called^ 
after a fabulous marine goddbss or nymph. Conversa- 
tions begun within doors and carried on by a round 
dozen of friends and acquaintances accustomed to 
dodging the traffic while keeping tight hold of the 
argument . 

Listen to that tall, dark, deep -eyed, swarthy com- 
plexioned man if you are fortunate enough! to be 
within earshot and, for the moment, safe upon the 
pavement. He is enclosing the entire universe in that 



FLASHES AT NAPLES 255 

sweep of the arm: : that is Giovanni Gentile, the 
philosopher of Palermo and now of Romte, maintaining 
the absolute imimknence of the Spirit in the Ujniverse, 
without differentiation of any activities. His opponent, 
shorter in stature, with the fine, white, delicate hands 
of the artist and that wonderful pair of piercing gray 
eyes in a massive head is the celebrated Benedetto 
Croce, who replies with an equally energetic gesture 
that the world we 'Hve in would be inexplicable if 
that were so and that the true division is fourfold — 
aesthetic, logic — but we have been almost run over by 
a frantic carrozza while contemplating these eminent 
men, who seem' to be immune to dangers from the 
traffic to which they .are so well acquainted. See 
another brilliant thinker in my excellent young friend, 
Di Ruggiero, who dashes across the road to join them 
and probably to support Gentile ; but Croce is a master 
of dialectic and may well be trusted to defend himself 
against the two of them. 

Let us drop behind for a moment and join another 
interesting and fascinating person in Di Giacomo, the 
dialect poet and dramatist of Naples, celebrated now 
throughout the peninsula, entirely thanks to Croce, who 
is Dantean in his power of creating reputations with a 
few words. Di Giacomo had an article dedicated to 
him in the Critica and sprung at once into fame. He 
is a delightful comf)anion, and once we paid a visit 
to Rome together. His eyes are dark -brown, danger- 
ously alert and understanding. He is rather bulky 
in build, but by no means unwieldly. He is not a 
young man now and his success has inspired many 
other dialect poets. His little dramatic pieces deserve 
attention : but they are difficult to follow, being aU 
written in the dialect of Naples, which widely differs 



256 CROCE, BAUDELAIRE, AND OTHERS 

from Italian spoken elsewhere. He tells me that 
inspiration always comes to him in the dialect form, 
though he speaks Italian perfectly and is in charge 
of the Ludovisi-Palla Library. He told me that when 
we reached Rome he felt just like a foreigner arriving 
in a strange land. Di Giacomo is also a great authority 
on the eighteenth century, which has not for him ceased 
to exist — Casanova is still escaping from the Piombi 
Prison at Venice and they still wear masks on the 
Grand Canal. 

In my wanderings, I have met men and women 
of many centuries besides the nineteenth and twentieth. 
Certainly Di Giacomo is a Neapolitan of the eighteenth 
century. With us there was Aubrey Beardsley, who 
also belonged to that period in France, though with his 
genius he reached out into the future and has influenced 
black and white work more than any other artist, of 
our time. 

The most perfect sixteenth -cencury type we have 
among us in England is my good and great friend, 
William Poel, who might have stepped straight from' 
a canvas by Holbein into the nineteenth century. His 
work as the advocate of Shakespeare, to be acted as 
he himself intended to be acted and in obtaining a pure 
text of our great national poet, is so well known that I 
shall not touch upon it here. I hope we may sit 
for many more years upon the Council of the London 
Shakespeare League together, to the confusion of the 
merely comimfercial Stage. Mr. Poel's real name is 
Pole, like the sixteenth -century Cardinal's, and his 
reason for changing it as quaint and original as his 
reasons for doing most things. As a boy he left home 
surreptitiously — to join the stage — and did not dare to 
flaunt the paternal patronymic behind the footlights 



WILLIAM POBL 257 

in those benighted days. He is an altogether de- 
lightful talker and lecturer. With him the colloquial 
element enters almost as much into the lecture as into 
ordinary conversation. The fact is that he knows his 
own subject so perfectly, the England of the time of 
Shakespeare, that it simply exudes from him' without 
apparent effort of any sort. His long, rather ascetic 
face and brilliant brave hazel eyes are well known to 
artistic audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. His 
delivery is sometimes very rapid, and his whole face 
flashes up with excitement when debating some vital 
point. He has many notes and stops in his voice, and 
achieves exquisite modulations in repeating Shakespeare. 
He has a naive and aimable socialism of his own, which 
he carries out to the letter. He told me for instance 
then, when last he went over to Pittsburg to lecture, the 
remuneration was excellent, but the art students of the 
city wished to present him, in addition, with a pair of 
silver candlesticks on the day of his departure. This 
was done with great pomp and ceremony, the hall being 
crowded with admirers and subscribers. Anybody else 
would have accepted the beautiful candlesticks with an 
appropriate little speech of thanks, but not so William 
Poel. On the contrary, he refused them very politely, 
saying that he had already been extremely well paid 
for his lectures and could not think of carrying anything 
away from Pittsburg to which he was not really entitled ! 
William Poel is an original thinker on theatrical 
subjects, and only the other day Mr. Bernard Shaw 
had the grace to admit on the platform that " we have 
all plundered William Poel." When he began to make 
his name known, to become a power on the stage, 
the managers thought it would be well to rope 
him in and muzzle him. They therefore invited 

17 



258 CROCE, BAUDELAIRE, AND OTHERS 

him to a private meeting, at which were present 
George Alexander, Beerbohm Tree, George Edwardes 
and a dozen other leading managers. They expounded 
their views as to how things ought to be and. would 
be done. Poel heard them to the end, and then said 
that he totally disagreed with their methods and their 
aims, and must refuse to join them in their intentions 
of preventing the public from having the best work 
and preventing young dramatists from' getting a hearing, 
and thereupon walked out of the room. I wish I had 
been present : their faces must have been a study. I 
remember the scene when Mr. Poel and the present 
writer swept the board at the General Meeting of the 
London Shakespeare League, Sir Henry Brabrooke, the 
Chairman, resigning and the policy that we are follow- 
ing to-day being adopted by a large majority. 

Il mentioned Beardsley above as being of the 
eighteenth century, and that was certainly the impres- 
sion I had of him during the last period of his ilife, 
when we met through the agency of his dear sister 
Mabel, whom all artistic London loved. He was then 
living at a small hotel at Dieppe. jHe used to await 
my coming in the little gravelled garden of an after- 
noon, and we sat with coffee cups before us. Our 
table was placed beneath the shadow of an acacia tree 
in this garden, and the sounds of the promenade were 
delightfully dulled and made remote for us by a wall 
of ivy. With Beardsley entered the eighteenth century. 
He had a wonderful capacity for creating atmosphere, 
not only in his art, but in his words and clean-dut„ 
dramatic gestures, with those blazingi brown eyes, above 
them that smoothly -flattened auburn hair and the long, 
ascetic-looking face, rendered so tragically keen by ill- 
ness. He was immersed at that time in the reading 



BEARDSLEY DAZZLING 259 

of Gautier,and in the illustrative work of iWaltteau, 
Fragonard and other French masters of his century. 
I shared his admiration for Th^ophile Gautier, the 
" impeccable " poet, master of prose, and soon we were 
hard at it in the discussions of the mysterious 
doings of Rosette in Mademoiselle de Maupln and of 
Mademoiselle herself. Suddenly he produced from his 
pocket a suite of marvellous pen-and-ink drawings of 
Mademoiselle de Maupin. I can see him now pro- 
ducing them, with a rapid cicular glance to make sure 
that we were undisturbed. The great adventuress, in 
one of these drawings, sits at her toilet-table in Venice, 
upon which are placed four candlesticks. She looks 
too wonderful for words, and is in the act of adding 
just a suspicion of additional belletto to the carmine 
already upon her cheeks. " The nearest I have ever 
been able to get to a beautiful woman," whispers 
Beardsley in his low voice at my elbow, as I admire. 
Her mask lies beside her, and no doubt there is a 
masked cavalier in the gondola below ready to carry 
her, by what mysterious meanderings of canals, to what 
marvellous revel with other masks as mysterious as 
she. Longhi with the experience of the years between : 
a masterpiece in little. 

Beardsley 's talk was dazzling in the extreme : it 
was like a sun^glass that concentrates such intense light 
where focussed that one felt if it remained there long 
it would set the subject aflame, as indeed it did, and 
we can study some of the flames in the Books of 
Drawings. I remember his describing the styles of the 
above and other masters in a few words which bit like 
an etching pen into the plate. I was able to tell him 
some anecdotes about Gautier, which I had recently 
culled from the monograph about " the perfect magician 



260 CROCE, BAUDELAIRE, AND OTHERS 

of French letters," as Baudelaire described him in a 
celebrated dedication. These set him off into fits of 
cheerful laughter, so I followed up with others of the 
poet of Fleurs du Mai dying his hair green and expect- 
ing therewith to astonish Auguste Vacquerie. Vacquerie 
entered and glanced at the hair, but made no comment 
whatever upon it, plunging at once into a literary dis- 
cussion. The poet became more and more uneasy, at 
last blurting out : " But don't you notice anything un- 
familiar about me to-day, mon cher Vacquerie? " " No, 
nothing at all out of the way : I see your hair is now 
green, but as it is an almost universal fashion to wear 
it that colour I did not Avish to congratulate you upon 
being commonplace." Baudelaire was furious. 

Beardsley now in high fettle rapped out his 
contribution of alas, unprintable anecdote and re- 
flection like a prince throwing down golden ducats. 
I searched my memory for another anecdote about 
Baudelaire and found the following, which made him 
laugh more consumedly even than before, but his 
flushed cheeks were a signal that it must be the last. 
The little incident is, I believe, perfectly true ; it 
reached me in a roundabout way, but has never, I 
believe, appeared in print even in France. Baudelaire 
was famous as a mystifier : nothing he enjoyed more 
than astonishing his admirers — and others, and he would 
take infinite pains to inveigle his victim. Legends of 
his making would-be Don Giovannis circumambulate 
frozen fountains in January by means of letters indited 
by himself as Dulcinea are numerous, but on this 
occasion the victim was merely a student of seventeen, 
who had once met Baudelaire and conceived for him 
the highest admiration. This very young man was 
meditatively pursuing his way up the Boulevard Saint- 



BARRE'S AT MAXIME'S 261 

Michel one afternoon when he saw' Baudelaire coming 
in his direction. His heart beat fast : should he 
venture to salute the poet? Certainly he would not be 
remembered, but nevertheless, as they passed one 
another, off 'went the youthful hat in a sweep of copious 
admiration. But, O joy ! Could it be for him? Yes, 
the great man had actually stopped and was advancing 
with outstretched hand. " My friend " (joy redoubled !), 
" I wonder if you could do me a great favour : I am 
in need of money." Astonishment, but like lightning 
the youth's memory ran over the state of his finances. 
It was the end of the quarter and he was almost 
penniless. He found five francs and offered them 
at once to the poet. ' " No," said Baudelaire, " that 
is too much ; fifty centimes is all I want : then he 
whispered : c^est une histoire de femme. 

Among later writers that I have met in Paris, there 
is one, Maurice Barr^s, who has attained to great 
celebrity. I suppose few have influenced the generation 
of Frenchmen now between forty and fifty-five so pro- 
foundly as he. His pale, sallow face has rarely been 
seen in London, though I once heard him lecture at 
Burlingham House during the war. He has long been 
a member of the Academic Frangaise. My first meeting 
with him was at a dinner-party given by Madame 
Alphonse Daudet. Her vivacious and entertaining son, 
the well-known deputy journalist and duellist, Leon 
Daudet, was among the guests and made Barres tell 
some of his best stories. We finished the evening (or 
rather morning), I remember, at Maxime's, having 
crossed the Seine on foot. Barres at first reserved, 
once started was most entertaining and evidently 
entirely unmoved by the rather excessive merchants 
of smiles who surrounded us at all the tables. 



262 CROCE, BAUDELAIRE, AND OTHERS 

The din was prodigious, but our conversation con- 
tinued as if we were still on the tranquil left bank 
of the river. At Daudet's request, Barres described 
his one and only visit to Victor Hugo, as a 
very young man. Vacquerie had insisted upon it that 
the author of Tdches (Vencre should be presented to 
the poet of the Legende des Siecles, so the appioint- 
ment was made, and they sat awaiting the great man's 
entrance in the magnificent salon with the red velvet 
hangings. At last the door was flung open and Victor 
Hugo entered with hands outstretched in the direction 
of Barrfes, who stood perfectly unmoved at the side of 
his introducer. " Young man," exclaimfed the poet, 
as he embraced his unmoved guest, " I have read your 
verses : they are exquisite." " Master," replied Barres, 
" I never wrote a verse in my life." Barres described 
Hugo as gaping amazedly at him and then finding 
some banal excuse to disappear. Barres, in appearance 
so coldly sinister, has always suggested to me what 
St. Just must have been when he addressed the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal in favour of adopting the most severe 
measures. His literary influence now is perhaps not 
equal to that of Charles Maurras, but is still consider- 
able. In politics he has made less mark, though he 
represented Nancy for several years and long presided 
over the "patriotic league." 

One more Parisian talker who has lately become promi- 
nent and I have done. Marcel Proust, author of Du cote 
de chez Schwann and other fiction without end was 
quite unknown to fame when I first met him in Paris at 
his father's. Boulevard Malesherbes. His pale, long 
face, with deep hollows under the eyes, proclaimed the 
invalid, and indeed he used not to appear before night- 
fall even in those early days, alleging (during the 



MARCEL PROUST 263 

summer at least) that his hay-fever made circulation 
in the daytime unendurable. His random style, which' 
appears to have no point from which it starts, and no 
end towards which it proceeds apparently suits the 
present |generation of Society Parisians. I frankly 
confess that I cannot read him with enjoyment, although 
I enjoy his conversation, which is rather like that of 
a man in a pleasant dream who is able to share 
it with you. His favourite place and moment for 
unveiling the secrets of his soul are between three and 
four of the morning, at the conclusion of a party which 
began at midnight and which one leaves with [him, 
sharing a taxi. He will conduct you to your domicilei, 
say good-bye with a waTm hand-clasp and then launch 
forth into the most amusing characterization (not erring 
on the side of good-nature) of the people you have 
been with and incidentally of everybody else in the 
Tout Paris. He has been compared to Choderlos de 
Laclos, but I should say that Proust's talent is the 
exact opposite of the sober and intense author of 
Liaisons Dangereuses. His style is like a feather-bed ; 
Laclos's, like the rapier that rips it. 

Of these desultory chats in club windows or in the 
bow-windows of county-house libraries during a week- 
end, when several men of different pursuits and a few 
" odds and ends of wives " — as the late Lord Cromer 
used to call certain fair ones of Cairene society — are 
gathered together. 

The actual place of the happening matters so little, 
providing that the ingredients are present, and these 
consist of the spirit of man — and woman — when set 
free from the ordinary trammels of convention and 
money -getting — Paris, London, Rome, Biarritz — or an 
inn by the wayside in Greece. 



264 CROCE, BAUDELAIRE, AND OTHERS 

Certainly my progresses across Europe in the 
'eighties and early 'nineties had much of the quality 
of the Arabian Nights Entertainment — I was so con- 
stantly in the habit of meeting with astonishingly 
interesting people of all sorts of ages and positions, 
and each one of these was able to hft the corner of a 
veil revealing infinite vistas of country unexplored, 
Casanova is very well in his wiay, but his eternal pre- 
occupation with love affairs of a secondary, not to 
say tertiary order, always seemed to me a narrowing 
of the possible horizon, an unnecessary restriction of 
experience. As I have mentioned Casanova, I may here 
tell a little tale about his posthumous amativeness, 
which was handed preciously to me by one who had 
it on the best authority. It has not before seen 'the: 
light. The celebrated adventurer died, as is well known, 
at Dux in Bohemia, and was laid to rest in the church- 
yard of the little town. Some twenty years after the 
burial, the space containing graves being entirely covered, 
another cemetery was chosen, and the old graves became 
gradually overgrown , with rich vegetation, entirely 
covering slabs and headstones, which had many of them 
sunk deep into the ground. A right of way was con- 
sequently claimed, and scores of feet came trooping 
and stamping down the already vanishing monuments, 
but it was noticed that all the pretty girls of the district 
found their frocks torn when they crossed a certain 
patch of grass. Examination was made, and it was 
discovered that they had all caught their skirts in the 
top of Casanova's headstone, which 'was but just visible 
above the soil. I suppose this is the most remarkable 
instance of the " ruling passion strong in death " upon 
record. 

But as I said, Casanova always seem'ed to me a 



ERNEST RENAN 265 

trifle narrow — circumscribed, and in my early manhood, 
I preferred to take my condottiere With! a little sauce 
a la Renan, which was then fashionable. I had the 
advantage of meeting the historian-moralist at my 
uncle's Grant Duff's, though not so far north as 
he actually once penetrated, namely to Eden, my 
uncle's lovely estate on the Deveron, in Banff- 
shire, which was afterwards sold to old Lord Fife, 
already mentioned among the heroes of the battue. 
What the author of the Vie de Jesus did there I 
cannot imagine, but he probably limited himself to 
quarter-decking the lawn overlooking the river with his 
host, who was about equally addicted to country 
pursuits, I remember that the first time I saw him 
was at the College de France, where he was then 
Professor. Bearing with me my uncle's introduction, 
I scaled the staircase with fear and trembling, 
eventually entering the presence of the great Hebraist 
in a state bordering upon aphasia. He received me 
with that delicious suavity which seems to have com- 
pletely vanished out of the world with the advent of 
democracy, and in reply to my apologies for my French, 
which (at that early date) was by no means perfect, 
affirmed that he, too, was ignorant, woefully, absurdly 
ignorant of England, and would be glad to have a 
little information upon the subject. Being fairly well 
grounded in the geography of the British Isles, I 
plucked up courage at this remark and thought for an 
instant of providing the aimable old gentleman before 
me, who kept washing his hands with invisible soap, 
while he applied the same useful article of the toilet 
to my very sketchy pronunciation of his exquisite 
tongue, with a brief statement of the principal 
manufacturing centres, rivers and sporting estates of 



266 CROCB, BAUDELAIRE, AND OTHERS 

Great Britain, but upon second thoughts and guided 
by a sort of suppressed twinkle in his benevolent but 
penetrating eyes, I decided to refrain, and (wisely) 
limited myself to extolling his works, so far as I was 
acquainted with them. He agreed with all I said, 
w^hich certainly encouraged me to proceed, and I 
ventured upon several rather doubtful assertions, which 
he did not take the trouble to correct. He sat there 
like a Buddha, and as long as I was prepared 
to bum incense, he was ready to inhale it. He 
had a way of swaying his big head from side 
to side, and only paused in this in order to remark : 
" How well said ! " Or he would raise his arms in 
the air as though about to bestow a benediction and 
then think better of it (or worse of the recipient) and 
let them fall gently upon his knees. Of course he 
did not think it worth while to instruct me in 'the 
rudiments of comparative philology, but all the same 
proved himself an excellent and kindly host ; Madame 
Renan, however, took upon herself to instruct me in the 
art of making* a tomato salad sauce worth a wilderness 
of emendations. , 



CHAPTER XVI 

COACHING AND OTHER CURIOSITIES 

Walter Pater and Renan — Sanctuary ! — J. A. Cramb — A Magician — An 
Indian Mystery — I Drive the Coach — Susanne Reichenberg. 

Pater and Renan I believe never met, but they had 
a good deal in common. The one wrote the most 
perfect English, the other the most perfect French prose 
of his time. Renan was once a priest and never lost 
the priestly mode of address ; Pater, though never 
in orders, was of an extremely religious temperament ; 
Renan, as I remarked above, agreed with all that was 
said and sometimes could hardly refrain from the 
benediction ; Pater adopted a similar method upon 
many occasions. There must be some living still (apart 
from his sister, Miss Hester, my dear friend) who 
have often heard his " I-have-no-doubt-you-are-quite- 
right," his " Ah ! yes," with which he met the on- 
slaughts of uneducated criticism. I gave some of 
my reminiscences of Pater to my friend, Mir. A. C. 
Benson, when he was writing his monograph, but 
the following little details were not included, and 
so far as I know, have never seen the light. The story 
is told of him when he was Fellow of Brasenose College, 
Oxford, that on one occasion he had the usual share 
of College examination papers for matriculation to look 
over and mark at the beginning of term. All the 
others were sent in, but Pater's not being forthcoming, 
his fellow -examiners decided to call upon him in 

267 



268 COACHING AND OTHER CURIOSITIES 

his College rooms. After tapping for some time at his 
door, they were admitted by Pater himself, pale-faced 
and ascetic in appearance, and graciously motioned to 
seats in his library. The table was strewn with Greek, 
Latin, and Italian texts, and the manuscript of the 
Renaissance lay in the centre, with the pen beside it. 
But the Fellows looked in vain for the neatly tied-up 
bundle of examination papers, which had been duly 
delivered some days previously by the College " scout." 
At last one of them ventured to inquire if the papers 
had been marked by Pater. To their astonishment he 
replied that he had received no papers so far as he could 
recollect — he was not even aware that the examination 
for matriculation was being conducted. They were in 
despair : the papers were certainly dehvered — what was 
to be done. Suddenly some one had an idea : 
" Shall we repeat the names of the young men 
in for the examination? Perhaps that might recall 
the matter." " Ah ! yes, that will be well, very well." 
Thereupon they started off reading from the list. Pater 
listened with an absolutely unmoved countenance of 
palted unrecognition until they reached the name of 
Sanctuary. " .What a beautiful and suggestive name," 
he remarked. That was all they could elicit from him. 
The papers were, I believe, eventually discovered 
reposing upon a chair in the hall, untouched. They 
had indeed found sanctuary which, so far as Pater was 
concerned, would never have been violated. 

A friend of mine, who used to know Pater, allows 
me to tell how she used at one time to live almost 
next to the author of Marias the Epicurean, and upon 
one occasion had the misfortune to faint in the kitchen' 
of her parents' house. The cause of this was the sight 
of a number of black beetles, and these horrible 



J. A. CRAMB 269 

creatures ran all over her face while she was lyingi 
helpless upon the floor. She was picked up', and soon 
returned to her senses and to the unsympathetic smiles 
of the family. Pater happened to be dining with them 
that evening, and after the family had exhausted their 
wit in chaffing the poor young lady about her mis- 
adventure, Pater drew her quietly aside and said : " I 
wish to tell you that I have great sympathy with you 
in your misadventure, the more so as I have myself 
experienced a like sensation of pullulating horror while 
contemplating the innumerable stars in the Milky Way." 
Pater alone was capable of such a phrase. 

There was another friend of those days, almost the 
exact antithesis of Reiian and Pater, who used to 
frequent the society of my dear friend, J. P. Nichol, 
already described. This was J. A. Cramb, who enjoyed 
a glimpse of fame as prophet of the Great War, but 
unfortunately died without receiving his full meed of 
recognition. Professor of History at Queen's College, 
Harley Street, where his lectures must have astonished 
the fair young ladies, his pupils. Cramb was about 
the last person one would have supposed suitable for 
such a post, though I have no reason to doubt that 
he filled it excellently well, overflowing as he was with 
historical knowledge and possessor of the proverbial 
golden mouthpiece. 

Cramb would burst into the stillness of my room 
like a tornado overdue, his hair erect upon his head, 
his long arms asway, his longer legs striding up and 
down the narrow space as he damned the villainy of 
the times, the lack of seriousness, the incapacity to 
look in the face the fact of Germany's immense accre- 
tion of power as a direct menace to ourselves. " Dotn 
it, Ainslie I " he would say (pronouncing as written). 



270 COACHING AND OTHER CURIOSITIES 

and thumping the nearest object with a titanic fisf, 
" Dom it, we cannot and we must not go on like this : 
Roberts is the only man in the country who does not 
seem to be sound asleep and snoring. Can't we do 
something to wake 'em up? " 

What he did was to publish his remarkable book^j 
Origin and Destinies of Imperial Britalny which received 
scant or superficial notice in the Press, 

At that time it was more fashionable to listen to 
certain of our Ministers with their stories of Germany's 
pacific intentions and the villainy of our aristocracy. 
I can see their faces and hear their tongues wagging 
against poor old Roberts stumping the country for all 
he was wbrth and telling^ the unwelcome truth. 

Cramb, like William Poel, was a man of the sixteenth 
century. He might quite well have been one of the 
galaxy that clustered round Shakespeare, Peele or Nash 
— not Greene, let us hope — Dekker or Marston. For 
Webster he was not sufficiently sombre, for Cyril Turner 
not cruel enough. But his language and his behaviour 
were alike those of a man belonging to another period 
of history than that through which we are passing. 

I met another such while I wtas in Paris at the 
Embassy striving variously to sever the monotony of red 
tape — that lion among magicians, MacGregor Mathers. 
He practised the black art (which, with him, was never 
worse than piebald) in the immediate vicinity of the 
Invalides. Thither to an obscure ground floor I would 
betake me on a blazing sumtaer afternoon, to find 
Mathers pouring over the pages of the Kabbala with 
blinds closely drawn to keep out the sun and a dim 
smoke rising from a crucible in a corner of the room. 
The mise en scene was most efi"ective, enlivened and 
heightened, as it was, by the presence of Mrs. Mathers, 



A MAGICIAN 271 

beautiful as the evening star, herself a magician of no 
mean powers — some said even more potent than those 
of the mighty MacGregor himself. Anyhow, it was 
all very wonderful, and a great relief from the Saliaran 
desert of Siamese affairs, which at that time occupied 
the attention of Her Majesty's Embassy. My horoscope 
was, of course, taken, by which it appears certain that 
Jupiter is in the ascendant and controls my destiny, 
though a certain goddess of extreme attractiveness has 
been and always will be apt to take a hand in the 
game ; but considering the part she played in the 
career of Jupiter himself, this is hardly to be wondered 
at in the case of a mere mortal. Matheirs was a man 
of the Louis XI period, and, I suppose, he had his 
reasons for living in the city where that amiable monarch 
spun his web so successfully. Astrology, I am con- 
vinced, is as exact a science as, shall iwe say, hydraulics, 
and infinitely more exact than such fantastic guess- 
work as political economy. I often smile at the 
seriousness with which serious people vaunt the dog- 
matic assertions of some John Stuart Mill, as though 
they were absolute truth, and then drop them' like a 
hot potato when the new man comes along with the 
new formula. The astrologers have always said : Give 
us the exact moment of your birth, and we will tell 
you what and whence you are and will he. I commend 
my readers to a recent article in that excellent publi- 
cation, the Mercure de France, for exhaustive treatment 
of astrology on scientific lines. 

The fact of the matter is that we know very little 
indeed as to our origin, and as to the potentialities of 
our bodies, even in this life. The following curious 
story was told me a few years ago, at Florence, by 
an Englishman who had studied the Indian Phil- 



272 COACHING AND OTHER CURIOSITIES 

osophy and Religion of Yoga. He was travelling 
in the interior, and on the occasion in question, 
had his gun in his hand, and came to a deep, rather 
wide stream in the jungle. Pleased with the quiet 
beauty of the spot, he thought he would sit down and 
rest for a while during the hot hours of the day. He 
had just installed himself comfortably on the bank, after 
taking the usual precautions against reptiles, when he 
was conscious of a slight movement among* the bamboos 
on the other side of the river. He remained motionless 
and was glad he did so, for to his surprise, instead 
of the wild animal that he expected, he saw a very old 
man, clad in a single shawl-Hke garment, with matted 
hair and eyes that appeared to see nothing, gazing straight 
before him. He approached the opposite bank and sat 
down almost facing my friend, who was concealed by 
the vegetation, yet could see him perfectly. A long 
time passed, perhaps two, perhaps three hours, during 
which the old man sat with his eyes fixed upon the 
stream, apparently in deep contemplation. Suddenly, 
he made a movement, stretching out a lean long arm 
to grasp something that was floating down the stream 
close in to the bank upon which he was sitting. He 
drew it towards him, and then my friend saw that it 
was the dead body of a youth, which had thus floated 
to the feet of the Yogi. A wisp of straw in the mouth 
signified that he was dead. 

The old man drew the body out of water with tender 
precautions, then, partly carrying, partly dragging it 
with him, disappeared into the dense jungle. My 
friend was deeply interested in this act, and 
anxious to discover what he had done with the 
youth's body, thus mysteriously sent dawn to him, as 
it were, upon the stream, and so mysteriously drawn 



AN INDIAN MYSTERY 273 

forth. Unfortunately there was no bridge for somfe 
miles in either direction and the stream was deep 
and broad. He did not care to swim over, as it 
teemed with crocodiles. So he decided to wait the 
possible return of the old man after he had buried 
the corpse and to question him as to his mysterious 
appointment to meet it on its downward way. For to 
him it was clear that the Yog*! expected the corpse. He 
sat there a long while, until the light began to fade, 
but the old man did not return, and he felt that it was 
time to seek his quarters some miles distant. He 
marked however the place on the bank and the next 
day at dawn crossed the stream by a bridge further 
up its course and followed the bank until he came 
to the spot where the old man had been sitting. 
Striking into the jungle from^ this point, he and a 
friend made a careful examination of the ground, cover- 
ing every foot of it systematically. About twenty yards 
from the bank, propped up against a tree trunk, they 
found the naked dead body of the old man. Of the 
youtWs naked body they could perceive no trace any- 
where, nor of the garment that the old man had worn. 

Other tales equally remarkable have reached me at 
first-hand and I am convinced that in India is know- 
ledge obtained by concentration of thought and possibly 
other means of a psycho -physical character, which 
transcends anything of which we in Europe are aware. 

Returning to the Paris days, from' which I have 
wandered, in order to return to them' with joy renewed, 
an incident in the memoirs of the Princesse de Talleyrand 
reminds me of another in my diplomatic career, which 
has, in common with it, only the fact that both are 
connected with coaches. My adventure arose one day 
when I was walking with Count Boutourline and 

18 



274 COACHING AND OTHER CURIOSITIES 

(Monsieur) Marie de La Hante. Boutourline was very 
literary, and at the same time much' interested in horses, 
and it appeared that he had arranged for an excursion 
to St. Germain by coach the following day. The coach 
had been hired, the party invited, and a .magnificent 
dinner ordered at St. Germain. They were all French- 
men and Russians, including the Due de Morny, 
Vicomte de Breteuil, Brevern de La Gardie of the 
Russian Embassy, and two or three others. All was 
thus arranged, and Boutourline had proposed to drive 
the coach, and consequently have by him', on the box 
seat, Mademoiselle Reichenberg of the Theatre Frangais, 
who at that time was still playing ingenue roles and 
in full possession of her charm and beauty. But here 
was the difficulty : none of the others would trust them- 
selves to the tender mercies of Boutourline, and as 
all had subscribed equally to the evening's amusement, 
all were equally entitled to a voice in the matter of the 
driver. Morny suggested that he should take the place 
of Boutourline, but this was at once howled down by 
the other Frenchmen present, who preferred, they said, 
sudden death to the loss of a few limbs in the inevitable 
collisions with other traffic if the Due were to be en- 
trusted with the reins. The final discussion, to which 
we were proceeding when the narrative opened^ took 
place in the establishment of the owner of the coach 
and horses. Suddenly someone had a new idea : " Let 
Ainslie drive." I was flabbergasted at this proposal, 
the more so, as almost at once the various-voiced dis- 
putants sank their differences, and agreed to trust their 
lives — and Mademoiselle Reichenberg — to my skill. I 
had accepted the invitation, and put up my share of 
the outing a day or two before, but never anticipated 
such a climax. The fact of the matter was that I was 



A COACHING PARTY 275 

about the only one of the party whq was not ready and 
wilhng to drive, and at the same time the only one the 
others would trust. A great compliment, not to me, 
but to the English character (Anglais with many 
foreigners does duty for British). Vainly I protested 
that I had never driven a coach in my life,^ though I Jiad 
driven most other vehicles, including the tandem, in 
which Phillips and I used to toil over to Dover from 
Folkestone, many years previously. That did not seem 
to disturb them in the least, and as all were equally 
determined that no one of their number should drive 
— and it was considered infra dig. to be driven by the 
coachman — I found myself, to my astonishment, and 
considerable perplexity, upon the box. The reins were 
indeed a handful, even after tandem reins, and I had 
but little time to bestow upon the vision of blue smiles 
and silk that found her way to my side. Allans ! and 
the leaders were let go, springing forward at once over 
the stones of the courtyard. I determined to be lured 
to no flights of folly, but to proceed with utmost de- 
liberation, and above all, to remember that the French 
rule of the road is the opposite to our own. I found 
that the leaders were rather inclined to pull, so when 
we got out of the main traffic of Paris, I let them go, 
more or less, their own pace, though' always taking care 
that it did not break into a gallop. Even so I found, 
after the first twenty minutes, that my arms were aching 
as though they were being pulled out of their sockets. 
I cannot imagine how certain friends of mine persist 
in driving coaches for their pleasure. Our pace was 
considerable, and indeed, one of the few remarks that 
reached me from the vision of beauty on my left, was 
to the effect that we were " eating up the road." 
Boutourline and the others, however, made up for my 



276 COACHING AND OTHER CURIOSITIES 

silence by shouting remarks to one another and to our 
one fair lady, which (I afterwards discovered), obtained 
for me, in her estimation, the useful reputation of a 
" strong man," or its French equivalent. We arrived 
in the early afternoon, and wandered about in the 
forest until seven o'clock. Most of the time I was 
listening to the outpourings of Pierre Boutourline, as 
he translated his Russian poems into French for my 
edification, and that of Mademoiselle Reichenberg. The 
dinner was a crescendo of gaiety, the interest centering, 
of course, round the lady, and I remtember how deeply 
^and silently) I regretted that 1 could not cope with 
the others in their use of the idiom'. Our fair guest 
set us all ofif into fits of laughter by exactly 
mimicking the Americans who came to her for 
lessons in French elocution, and then won our 
admiration with selections from her repertory as the 
ingenue eternelle. The drive back was a dream. The 
road was, luckily, almost free of traffic, and the horses 
seemed to have reconciled themselves to my hands, for 
they gave no trouble, and I even ventured to lay 
a humble little verbal tribute like a bouqaeft de deux 
sous at the feet of our fair companion, who had been 
pelted all day with such gorgeous flowers of rhetoric. 
To my great surprise, it was accepted with alacrity, 
although so slight a thing, and I then learned what 
I have ever remembered since, that in a competitive 
examination it is always best to do your best however 
hopeless the case may seem, without regard to the 
superiority of the other candidates — especially when the 
examiner does not wear trousers. 

Mademoiselle Susanne Reichenberg used to live in 
a secluded little bHnd-street, not far from' the Avenue 
du Bois de Boulogne, and thus close to the centre of 



ANATOLE FRANCE 277 

things, yet enjoying the quiet of the country. The 
Villa Said has since become celebrated as the residence 
of Anatole France, one of the best talkers, as he is 
one of the greatest writers of our day. It is a great 
advantage, when meeting a distinguished talker, to find 
him in the company of his peers, who are able to draw 
him out, so that the burden of starting the game by 
beating about the bushes does not fall upon the visitor, 
who may feel justifiably shy of disturbing coverts so 
closely preserved. France, in his vivid red velvet cap 
in his own study, is a very different person from' France 
at a reception, defending himself from the vigorous 
onslaughts of his admirers. ; 



CHAPTER XVII 
LITERARY AND OTHER LIONS— ITALY 

Hippolyte Taine — A Russian Diplomatist — Lessar Among the Lions — A 
Brave Lady— Not " My Lion " — Revels at Florence— The Rose Garden 
— Ruth Anderson —Enchanted Ground. 

Taine, whom I first met in a crowd, and afterwards 
in the quietude of his dwelling in the Rue Cassette, 
was also a person who gained greatly in being taken 
apart from his usual environment of avid students and 
empty-headed people of social position. I remember 
that what first broke the ice with the historian of French 
contemporary civilization were my manoeuvres with my 
opera-hat which, as used to be the fashion, I had carried 
with me into my aunt's drawing-room in Great Stanhope 
Street. Taine frankly burst out laughing at the in- 
genuity of Gibus, whose genius was thus revealed to 
him for the first time, borrowed my hat, put it several 
times through its collapsible drill and returning it to 
me said he would purchase one on the morrow' and 
at the same time added an invitation to visit him in 
Paris. It was at his house that my youthful ears, tuned 
then to the French of Stratford-atte-Bowe, were first 
thrilled with the Academician's pronunciation of the 
definite article. " Un^ homme de monde," calmly 
uttered the august Academician, passing the pepper 
without flinching or exhibiting the smallest sense of 
having committed a solecism. " Un^ homme du monde 
a afiirme," he repeated, regardless of his youthful inter- 
locutor's eyes, that were almost tumbling into his soup- 

278 



LESSAR AMONG THE LIONS 279 

plate. It was not until long afterwards that I ventured 
to inquire why he had — er — turned a man into— er-a 
woman upon that occasion. He laughed heartily, and 
explained that with certain purists in pronunciation the 
full value of the vowel " u " was not given unless it was 
thus elongated into what, to ears not accustomed to 
shades of sound in French, might appear to be a 
feminine . 

I have made so many lions roar, in the course 
of these pages, tha,t I have no scruple in adding a couple 
of genuine incidents in connection with the king of the 
forest and emperor of the desert. 

The first refers to rny good friend, Lessar, formerly 
Russian Minister at the Embassy in Londbn. Lessar, 
a lean man with a limp and the eyes of a hawk, used 
to boast that he was the only Russian who had ever 
had a British Blue Book entirely deVoted to his 
activities. He had long been the Russian Emissary 
in Persia, and had sat on all the Boundary Comlmissaries 
between this country, Persia, Afghanistan, and Russia — 
who was then supposed to nourish insidious designs 
regarding our Eastern possessions. He had inhabited 
such cities as Merv, Tashkent and Tiflis, having been 
Governor of the latter. When he liked, he was an 
excellent raconteur, and many an interesting evening 
have I spent with him at the St, Jarqes's and the 
Marlborough. He did not go much into Society beyond 
the strict necessity of official receptions : he said that 
he had found far better talk in those remote places 
where men had time to think atout their lives and 
those of others than in the great iWestem capitals, 
where like Sir Claude Phillips in Max Beerbohm's cari- 
cature of that distinguished frequenter of parties, 
everybody was for ever " going on " too busy to 



280 LITERARY AND OTHER LIONS— ITALY 

converse — and never getting anywhere. Lessar gave me 
a copy of the famous Blue Book with a very amiable 
dedication, and I hope some day to accord it a place 
of honour among my books in the " dome-shaped 
library " of my dreams. Poor fellow, he suffered a 
good deal from his back, and for days at a time was 
hardly at all visible to the external World, doing his 
official work in his own room's. He was completely 
indifferent to lif|e, which he looked uppn as a mere 
spectacle that is bound to pass aWay, and has few 
moments that can leave a thrill. The fact was that he 
had already experienced practically all the thrills that lean 
be obtained in a sublunar diplomatic existence. There 
was at one time an oyster scare : hardly anybody ate 
oysters, but Lessar took a dozren at luncheon and a 
dozen at dinner, because, as he explained, they are 
rather pleasant to the taste, and' now one has also 
in eating them the entrancing possibility of hastening 
the adventure of death. 

About this time he evolved another mode of obtaining 
an emotion. There was a lion-tamer with his cageful 
at the Westminster Aquarium, and the excellent Lessar 
one day invited me to lunch with him and watch him 
walk through the cage with the tamer. The tamer had 
said that there was only one lion from whom there was 
anything to fear, but he was a Tartar; ! The way it was 
done was by identifying Lessar with the tamer. Lessar 
wore a jacket and trousers of the same fawn colour, and 
rested his left hand on the shoulder of the tamer, who 
preceded him into the cage. Each carried a heavy 
steel bar in his right hand. There were four lions and 
two lionesses. As the tamer predicted, the Tartar 
sprang forward at Lessar, but he was immediately 
received with such a solid thump on the neck from the 



ANOTHER LION STORY 281 

tamer's isteel bar that he slunk back into his corner, 
and for the rest of the entertainment limited himself to 
giving a superb view of his dentition and rousing the 
echos of the lofty hall with noble roars. In this he w'as 
joined by the remaining five : they made the scent- 
bottles on the adjacent perfumery stall leap. Lessar 
and the tamer proceeded in the most leisurely manner, 
united as described, and if looks could protect, certainly 
the pteel of fiitn' resolve in the eyes of the Russian 
was as useful as the steel bar had been.,. 

On emerging from^ the cage Lessar remarked that 
it had quite given him an appetite for luncheon, ^so 
we adjourned to Romano's, where we had oysters — of 
course ! — and other good things. 

Had Lessar been gobbled up instead of his luncheon 
I was to go and break it gently to the Ambassador 
de Stahl, a delightful man of the world, who would 
no doubt have taken it as Stendhal did the retreat from 
Moscow, above described. 

The other lion story, more recent in date, happened 
to my friend, the Hon. Mrs. Kenneth Dundas, whose 
husband was killed fighting our enemies in the Great 
War. They were then living near Nairobi, and the 
neighbouring country Was well supplied with lions. A 
couple of friends came to stay with them' for a few days' 
lion ishooting. The morning after their arrival they 
sallied out, a party of four. Captain and Mrs. Dundas 
and the two friends. The country was an open undu- 
lating plain with here and there a small bush, ^ot 
large enouglh to conceal a lion, so they had no doubt 
that if the game were about they would come upon it. 
They walked " miles and miles," as Mrs. Dundas 
describes it, each carrying a rifle. At last she became 
so tired that she said she must go home. Her husband 



282 LITERARY AND OTHER LIONS— ITALY 

persuaded her to hold on until they could look idbwn 
from the top of the slope they were then ,approa,chingi. 

Joy I There in a cup-shaped hollow, not more ,than 
1 20 yards away, were four magnificent beasits; — 
two Hons and two: lionesses. As the only lady 
of the party, Mrs. Dundas was given first shot, and 
killed one of the two lions dead. The two ilionefeses 
immediately decamped, and one of the guests let go 
at the other lion, which he "vyounded badly. The 
beast saw and made for them crouching low and 
covering the ground amazingly fast, got within 
twenty yards. The other guest and her husband 
fired and missed. Meanwhile Mrs. Dundas had 
time to reload, but did not fire. " Why not? " 

1 remember asking when she first, told me the story. 
" I didn't like to, because^ it wasn't my lion, she 
replied (the italics are mine). By this time it was 
not more than ten yards off (of course the narrative 
takes longer than the event), so she asked her husband : 
" Shall I fire? " " Yes," he replied', so she and he 
(having just reloaded) fired together, and rolled the 
monster over stone dead — just in time. " It would 
certainly have got one of us in another second," she 
remarked placidly describing the incident. 

" Because it wasn't my lion " is to my mind a 
uniquely British saying. Only on the calm lips of the 
British could the ethics of the pheasant shoot be apphed 
to a lion's charge. What chance had the Germans 
against a country which can produce such magnificent 
sporting sang-froid? 

How many of my countrymen have discovered Italy 
from the artistic point of view. Browning, of course, 
was one, and there are many others, but few enough 
considering our ever-growing population of those who 



SEE ITALY AND LIVE 283 

can afford the journey. Florence is, of course, the 
chief rallying point of our race, but other towns of 
the peninsula have also their unique charms. 

No country so much as Italy inspires one with the 
sense of the infinite potentialities of life. From the 
days of the Renaissance when, as was said at the time, 
a new race of men seemed to walk the earthy Italy 
has possessed this capacity for bestowing a unique 
stimulus to the higher modes of existence. Intensity 
of life and exquisite beauty are the two chief messages 
of Italy and these she is destined to preach through 
the ages, with Russia a blinded bear groping in mud 
and darkness to the east, the Germanic, Czeco -Slovak 
and Jugo-Slav semi -barbarous States at hier very gates. 
Italy is the marvel of the world, but one should not 
visit marvels in the company of Thomas Cook — at most 
permit that admirable firm to prepare the externals 
in the way of railway tickets, and do the rest yourself. 
But how are we to "do the rest, and what is it?" 
I may be asked. The rest varies with the individual : 
he rnust create hi's opportunities. Personally I have 
found it excellent to go to Florence and revel, and 
apply oneself afterwards to the literature and art. I 
shall supply a few notes as to how I revelled, which 
may afford a clue to others wise enough to be foolish 
while they are young. 

Florence in the eighteen-nineties was probably not 
very different externally from! thie Florence of the seven- 
teen -nineties. But the charm of the city draws artistic 
people from all parts of the world, and in the 'nineties 
it was certainly one of the mo'st interesting and 
amusing of cities. I had by this time left the Paris 
Embassy for good and was a free lance. 

The society to which I refer was largely coismp- 



284 LITERARY AND OTHER LIONS— ITALY 

politan — English, American, French, Austrian, Italian. 
Mr. Rolshoven's, the painter's studio, was one of the 
chief rendezvous, and there were others not five minutes' 
walk from the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. It was 
fuU springtide in that haippy clime, where one is sure 
of the sun, and we were all either ourselves in the 
springtime of our lives, or at leaist in quite early summer.. 
We frequented various trattorias, avoiding the 
fashionable restaurants, but mostly preferred rather 
sketchy snacks of food pa'rtaken of between the dances 
or processions or whatever wab the fashion of the day 
or night. We would think nothing of descending from 
the summits of some star-pointing turret of Ghibelline 
date headed by the music that invariably accompanied 
us — our perambulating orchestra of three entertaining 
Italians — a man with a fiddle, one with a sort of 
glorified concertina and another with a horn from 
which proceeded Weirdly beautiful sounds — for it goes 
without saying that our performers were artists and 
incapable of straying into discojd. We proceeded to 
dance through the streets, led by Miss Ruth Anderson, 
that most graceful and beautiful girl who fascinated 
all those whom she met. Tall, with dark hair like 
tendrils, expressive arms and hands, and eyes like the 
Italian night, one could have sworn that she was 
Italian -born and treading the streets of her native town. 
Then there was Mrs. Bishop, who was also a graceful 
dancer. Crowds assembled, but behaved with perfect 
decorum, gravely making a circle round our chief per- 
formers and applauding their really artistic motions 
with that invariable and sar^ recognition which Italians 
have for all art manifestations, big and' little. Ours 
was of course of the latter sort, but I do not think it 
would be possible in any country but Italy. 



A ROSE-PARTY 285 

Sometimes we would dine at a trattoria called, I 
think, Paoli's, and after frolicking about there with 
dance, song, and recitation, we would emerge upon the 
piazza and proceed towards our favourite tavern in 
the centre of the town, with its lofty terrace open to 
t[he stars and adorned witli great pots of red roses, 
heavy with night and perfume. Armfuls of flowers 
were in our ladies' arms, and they would stand and 
fling; them dowtn to the crowd assembled below, which 
scrambled and jostled to possess the memories of such 
a night;. I remember that Rolshoven remarked a. prapos 
of one of these nights : " Such things have not been 
done in Florence since Dante's time." That was a 
real compliment from the leading painter of the many 
established in Florence. 

On another occasion we had a " Roisfe Party " at 
the Houghtons, on the terrace overlooking the Arno. 
Great torches flamed in their sockets, yellow* and orange, 
against the blue -black rippling of th!e stream. At one 
end of the tierrace was a re4 rose-tree, and down either 
side a series of little rose-bushes, white, yellow, and 
red. At the other end, a bed of tall white lilies, whiah 
swayed and sighed on thie light breeze as a poor old 
wayfarer finds his way into this Enchanted Garden. 
He falls asleep under the red rose-tree. Then the lilies 
dance to him and wake him' up, and he sits up tol 
watch the dance. Thfen all the little rose-bushes dance 
a wild, happy dance around him, and take away his 
long grey beard, and his hump, and his stick, and 
make him into a young man again. He dances with 
them. Then thte Spirit of Memory cohies into the 
Garden bearing the rejected cloak and stick. The way- 
farer beeomles terrified, but the little rose-bushes cluster 
around him, and one of the lilies takes it upon herself; 



286 LITERARY AND OTHER LIONS— ITALY 

to expel the Spirit of Memory from' the Garden. She 
dances him away, and then slowly sways back to the: 
rose-bushes and the traveller who lies asleepi at last 
under the ifed rose-tree. The lily then dances slowly 
to herself, and ends her dance with her back to the 
sleeping traveller, the rose-tree, and the rose-bushes, 
solitary in the Sleeping Garden. 

That was a wonderful evening! ! I can see the loggia 
now, with its uneven sloping floor and Miss Ruth 
Anderson, the Queen Lily, dancing upon it as though 
she really walked on air, and was only touching the 
floor out of politeness to her host. Beardsley's favourite, 
plate was on the wall, about which ;he had quarrelled 
with Houghton. Whose was it? Finally they decided 
to share it, each a fortnight alternately, until Beardsley, 
when he knew he was going to die, resigned it altogether 
to his friend. A voice at my felbow asks : land did! 
you know Pater? Yes, he had a hejad like a mask of 
old ivory, set with the sapphires that Wdre his eyes, and 
with that a drooping moustache and slow* deliberate 
movements as though a priest within were moving the; 
idol. The Lily left me, and the dance began. [Alexander! 
was the Spirit of Memory, in black, with a wreath of 
irises, Chattie Hereward the Wake was wonderful in 
the rose dance, Rolshoven and I danced with the Lily 
Queen, Hough tpn wore grey flannels and a wreath of 
tiny pink roses 1 He appeared by no means eccentrijc 
among us. -When at last the Lily Queen's aunt im-^ 
peratively demanded her presence, a dancing ring was 
formed around hter, which ^it was found impossible to 
pierce. The aunt was jfinally included in the ring 
and made to dance with the rejuvenated old man in 
the hope that the rejuvenation might prove to be 
contagious ! ; , i ; i 



RUTH ANDERSON 287 

Another wonderful day we spent at Signa in the 
garden of a gorgeous villa ; in such a, garden (perhaps 
it was the very one) Boccaccio sat to tell his tales. 
It was like the stage in the garden scene ofl a, 
production of Twelfth Night. It made one rub one's 
eyes and wonder if one were not dreaming some fairy 
tale or lost legend. There were the laroad grass walks 
flanked by cypresses and ending in an old gateway, 
far at the other end, the old stone terraces of lov'ely 
colours and stone figures erect or couchant against 
dark ilex trees, and here and there stone balustrades, 
and beyond a view of Florence shimmering in the blue 
distance. The suggestion for acting was too strong 
to be resisted, especially with' Ruth Anderson among 
us ; so with a background of green, ,and on a bit of 
old terrace, she did parts of As You Like It, 
and (Selections from Omar Khayyam' by an old pillar 
overshadowed with ilex with a goblet of red wine in her 
hand. All wore garlands in the mode of the thirteenth 
century. We had a Bacchante with red hair twined 
in ivy, Rolshoven — a true artist ready to enter into 
the spirit of any revel — Rolshoven himself wore a 
wreath with two horns in the front made out of fir 
cones — as a sat^yr. Mr. Alucetti wore fir, Arthur Herbert 
a wreath of laurel, and looked like a Roman Emperor 
(my poor friend was afterwards drowned as King's 
Messenger carrying dispatches between London and the 
Hague), Francis Stirling^, an ivy wreath with jberries 
falling in bunches about his ears, Ruth Anderson, wild 
briar foliage prankt with anemones. AnemJones every- 
where starred the grass, with here and there a patch 
of purple, and now and then a ,tiny scarlet flame. It 
was all too good to be true — and proved it by dis- 
appearing with that marvellous day, that wonderful place 



288 LITERARY AND OTHER LIONS— ITALY 

made for the capering of gloats and the light footsteps 
of nymphs. 

We ^ad lunch by an old fpuntain where goldfish 
roamed and a hoary old Triton guarded them. The 
whole place seemed to belong to a Trince fromi no- 
where, an old magnificent and even invisible host and to 
this day I have no notion to whom' the villa belonged. 
It was wonderful, and makes the very ink vibrate with 
the blood of youth ! That splendid sun, those flitting 
fleecy clouds, grass studded with mauve and white, and 
tilie tall dark comtnanding cypresses : add to this the 
old warm stone -work — warmed by the passionate sun 
himself — and our youtjh — and then keep calm' if you 
can. We enjoyed the minutes, every one of them', 
imitating the statues who surveyed us — so gravely — 
donning wreaths renewed, with the pond for looking- 
glass. ;We tried to be classical ! 

I wonder if any of my readers will understand the 
feeling for other days that animated usi — other stories, 
other lives, played out in this enchanted ground. We 
all had what may be described as the early Italian 
fever : it gripped us more strongly even than love, 
in any of its forms, in that ,old gard'e'n of distant 
yesterdays. Ruth Anderson was the inspiration of us 
all — would I could rouse old Landor from his villa 
over the hill at Fiesole to write another Rose Aylmer 
in her honour — in her Early Italian robe, shining in and 
out between those cypresses and statues ; as a wood- 
nymph she leapt and tossed about the flowers that were 
handed to her in armfuls, dancing with starry flowers 
in her hair and the water for a mirror, or chasing a 
goat to wreath leaves around its neck' — or flying from' 
the satyr swiftly over that green ^rass with her bare 
feet, fleeter by far than he, gyrating in and out of the 



ITALY THE ENCHANTRESS 289 

ilex shrubs and round the cypresses — to fall panting 
upon some stone bench, utterly free and careless 
beneath that blue Italian sky. 

Semel insanav'pmus omnes — we have all, I suppose, 
been mad once, and I should be glad to say good-bye 
to sanity for a few days at any time if I could again 
find myself in that Florence of the 'nineties. 

I have purposely avoided all tourist talk of picture 
galleries and places of interest, for these, although I 
frequented them incidentally. Were mUch less real than 
that first fervour of knowing Italy, which I have striven 
(so imperfectly) to convey in these last pages of my 
" Adventures." The literature and art of Italy followed 
for me in the wake of this first vital awareness of the 
splendour of Italy and of all that it means for us 
natives of the north. 

That winter I decided to spend at all costs in Italy, 
though it meant cancelling various engagemients in 
England. I was at Milan at the time, and just as 
on a former occasion in the Western Highlands, as 
previously recorded in these " Adventures," awoke with 
a poem in my head, which I venture to transcribe as 
a valedictory offering to those readers who have done 
me the honour to accompany me upon this little trip 
to Cythera and Arcadia by way of Piccadilly, the Corso 
and the Elysian Fields of Paris. 

In this volume I have said but little of Italy. In 

another, which is in preparation, I shall attempt to do 

her more efficient justice, my chief contribution hitherto 

having been to make the literary criticism and philosophy 

of Croce known to the English-speaking world ten 

years or so earlier than would have been the case, had 

I not visited Naples in 1906. Hundreds of professors 

and students had passed through Croce's city for years 

19 



290 LITERARY AND OTHER LIONS— ITALY 

without apparently being struck in any Way with the 
splendour of the new thought, upon which our literary 
critics have since based themselves, from Mr. Glutton 
Brock and Mr. Walkley downwards. 



ITALY THE ENCHANTRESS. 

Italy, Italy, England how clear she cries, 

"" Come o'er the Alps again, come o'er the snow. 

Dance through the vintage of France with the dear free eyes. 

Dance with the nymphs of the Seine as you go." 

Italy, Italy, why should I cling to thee. 
Thou that hast worshippers better a score. 
Poets and painters and lovers to bring to thee 
Passionate kisses and memories of yore ? 

Italy, Italy, I too I love thee well, 
I that have scarce touched thy cheek with my Ups, 
Scarce seen the sun kiss thy turreted citadel, 
Scarce seen thy smile set the world in ecUpse. 

Laura Petrarca, Paolo Francesa, 
Beatrice Dante, the cadences fall, 
Muse of the Harmony Ariostesca, 
Tasso, the silvery syllables call. 

Italy, Italy, I too was made for thee. 
Changed at my birth for some child of the mist ; 
I dwelt afar while he sang and he played for thee 
Music on lutes that my fathers had kissed. 

Now at the last I have found and I cleave to thee. 
Land that my footsteps have trodden so late. 
Well will it be if my passing may leave to thee 
One northern pearl for the Crown of thy State : 

Pearl not of oyster that slumbers in ocean. 
Fair but unworthy thy forehead to bind. 
Pearl of the thought of eternal devotion, 
Italy, Queen of the heart and the mind ! 



291 



PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 
BY UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED 
PRINTERS, LONDON AND WOEING 



9 



"N 



George Gordon, 6th of Gight. 
Sir George, 7th of Gight. 

Sir George, Sth of Gight. 

SL- George. 9th of Gight. 



Mary, loth of Gight. 



THE DUFFS AND THE GORDONS 

A Table bringing out the Literary Instincts of the Two. 

Sir WILLIAM GORDON, Founder of the Gight Family. Son of Alex., 2nd Earl of Huntly, and the Princess Annabella Stuart. 

Sir William Goiujon, lounik-r of the Gight laiiiily. Killed at Iloddeii, 1513, 

John Gordon of Gight. 



Adam Duf^in Clunybeg (died 1676) 
mar. Beatrix Gordon of Bii-I<enbiirn. 

\ 



Alexander Duit of Keithmore 
mar. Helen Grant of Alathy. 

I 



Christian Gordon of Gight. = Sir Adam Gordon of Park. 
John Gordon of Park. 



George Gordon of Edingla; 




Duff. Jane Duff, 
mar. Innes of 
Edingight. 



Robert Duff. 
Hence Duffs 
of Fetteresso. 



William of Dipple, 

mar. Jean Gordon 

of EUinglassic. 

I 

1 



Alex. Innes of Rosieburii, 



Eliza Iiines, 

lar. Alex. Russell 

of Aden. 



Alex, of Braco, 

ar. Margt. Gordon, 

of Lesmoir. 



Margaret Duff, 
mar. Gordon of 
Glen gar rocli. 

I 

Margaret Gordon, 
mar. John Miln. 



Sir Alex. Duff. Margaret, 
Jolni Gran 



Lady Henrietta, 

ar. Robert Gordon 

of Esslemont. 

I 

William Gordon. 



Adam Dumford Gordon, 
mar. his cousin. 
Harriet Gordon. 



2nd Lord Aberdeen, 

mar. Lady Anne Gordon, 

dan. of 2nd Duke of Gordon 

I 

I 



Lord Rodevilk- 



Sir WUliam 

Duff Gordon, 

. Caroline Cornewall. 



Sir Alex. Cornewall 

Duff Gordon, 
mar. Lucy Austin. 




Anne Duff, Sir James Durt 
Countess of of Hatton. 



Catherine Gordon, 

last of Gight, 

mar. Captain Byron 



Alexander Russell. Norwich Garden W. Mary Duff, 5th Earl. James Grant Duff. 

(Admiral). 1 " Byron's Mary," | I 

I I mar. Robert Cockburn. 



'Aiuslie Douglas AinsUe. 



Sth Lord Lo\'elace. 



Hon. Ada Byron. 

i 

9th Lord Lovelace. 
Hon. Ada Noel. 



Percival. Julian. Ra 

I I 

Eileen. SteUa, AU.\., Cynthi: 



.Arthur, E\elyn, Adrian, Clara, Hampden, Victoria, Lily, Iseult. 
* Born Ainslie Grant Duff. Changed to Ainslie Douglas Amslie on succeeding to Delgaty Castle, Aberdeen, and Bleuie in Morayshire. 
This Table has been drawn up by Mr. J. M. Bullock, Historian oj Ihe Gordons, Editor of the " Graphic," by whom it was presented to me, and K here reprinted with his kind consent and the addition of tlie Princess Royal's name to tlie Fife 































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